一位奇怪的同事们与一个奇怪的故事接近了一位杂志。由一群原告律师资助的工业设施周围的社区进行了流行病学研究。该研究得出结论，社区中的健康效应与设施发出的曝光有关。基于该研究的纸张被提交给Journal A并被拒绝。它也支持支持诉讼（与同一原告有关）。作为“发现”过程的一部分，作者是原告的专家见证人，披露本文被A的杂志拒绝，他不得不向法院提交审稿人的报告。海外同事看到了报告。一个审查是详细和关键的;另一个是一般和积极的和推荐的出版物。它在法庭中出现了积极的评论来自代表原告作为付费专家合作的个人，谁与研究作者的关系超过10年。 ” The primary question from the overseas colleague is whether the reviewer was nominated by the author or was chosen quite independently by the Journal. Bias by the reviewer and collusion seems more likely if the reviewer was nominated by the author. Journal A encourages nomination of suitable reviewers, but only uses them sometimes, and always with another one chosen separately. The editor of Journal A is seeking legal advice about revealing whether the reviewer was nominated by the author. The Journal is also going to introduce a specific requirement for reviewers to declare any possible competing interests. This would not necessarily prevent malpractice, but it does show reviewers this is an issue that is taken seriously. This case is submitted as a reminder that reviewers can also misbehave and to seek guidance about any further action required. The positive review by the reviewer suspected of misconduct was apparently presented during the court case in support of the scientific validity of the paper rejected by Journal A. Legal advice to the editor of Journal A is that it is permissible to reveal that the reviewer in question was nominated by the author of the paper (as is the case) but without offering any comment on the case.
我们把一篇论文寄给了一位审稿人，他建议我们拒绝接受这篇论文，主要是因为他认为这篇论文“几乎与同一作者发表的一篇论文一模一样”。我们拒绝了带有这些评论的报纸。作者回来告诉我们，他不相信他的论文得到了公正的审查，因为，他认为，审稿人存在利益冲突。他写道:“相关人员所在的学院与我的系是竞争对手，目前正在进行合并他的系和我的系的谈判。这使我们在学术上和行政细节上产生了直接冲突。因此，我认为我们的论文没有得到公正的评价。”他还写道:“对我们论文的评论，大多数都是不利的，被这个人引用给了其他高级学者和其他期刊的编辑。”作者没有对复制出版的指控作出任何回应。我给这位作者回信说，如果他正确地确定了审稿人(这似乎很有可能)，那么审稿人没有声明利益冲突，这让我感到不安。我还请他对可能出现的重复发表问题作出回应。 I haven’t heard from the author. What should I do now?
建议:
审稿人应该被告知作者的主张。至少，审稿人应该已经揭示了他的利益冲突，很可能没有审阅过这篇论文。双方都有过错:利益冲突和裁员。审稿人可能只是有利益而不是利益冲突。没有作者的允许，我们不能回去复查。如果是作者提出的，编辑就有义务通知这些指控的审稿人。双方的卑劣行为，编辑是否有责任或他应该走开?向可能有过错的各方征求意见是编辑的责任。应该采取平权行动，并确定双方的义务。(1)与作者一起跟进重复发表的指控。 (2) If publication is redundant, the author should be reprimanded. A literature search will provide evidence of previous redundancy by the author. If he has done this before then his institution should be informed. (3) If the author gives permission, then the reviewer should be questioned about conflict of interest; without the author’s permission, this would have to be left alone. Further action The editor should write a third time to the author (the earlier letters not having been acknowledged) telling him that he can not let the matter rest. If there is still no reply then the editor should contact the reviewer requesting clarification of the evidence of redundancy.