提交的一篇论文报道的调查和管理疾病的爆发在工作环境中(公司)。作者承认提到医生从workplace-who拒绝了法律建议上市公司作为一个作家,也宣布,第一作者为报酬公司提供医疗建议在与本文中讨论的爆发有关的法律诉讼期间。提交文章时,爆发的公司之间的法律诉讼,在疫情发生,和该公司提供所谓的疫情的病原体(公司B)。第一作者已与公司签订了保密协议关于他/她的诉讼证据,但不是为了任何已经为公众所知的信息，这不是作者的过错。提交人还添加了一份手写增编，声明他接受该协议，"前提是我报告具有科学和公共卫生重要性的发现的学术自由不受损害"。经过同行评审，这篇论文的科学性被认为是可靠的。该杂志的法律顾问对出版有一些担忧;法律程序积极进行;工作场所医生虽然在科学上参与了研究，但没有被列为作者;文章从A公司的角度对此次爆发进行了讨论，而文章对A公司的描述是有说服力和客观的，没有关于B公司对此次爆发的了解。 If the case resolved in favour of Company B, then the article would need to reflect this. The editor wrote to the authors, relaying the legal concerns and informed them that journal, on the basis of legal advice, could not publish while litigation was ongoing. The journal suggested that it would consider a revised version of the manuscript after the case had been resolved. The authors submitted a revised version of the article. As part of the revisions, the authors had deleted all references to the names and locale of the companies. The legal proceedings had been concluded with an out of court settlement; the lead author had no involvement in this. The terms of the settlement are subject to a confidentiality clause and it is not known whether liability was admitted or not. Company A does not wish the paper to be published on the grounds that this would violate the confidentiality agreement between the two parties. On the basis of legal advice from his/her institution, the author states that s/he is not bound by an agreement to which s/he was not party; that the handwritten clause in his/her agreement with Company A allows for publication of the article; and that the details of the outbreak were public as they had been presented in abstract form as well as briefly described in a local language publication. The lead author feels that the journal’s reluctance to publish on the basis of legal concerns is flawed. As originally relayed to the author, it was stated that the journal could be seen as “taking sides” in an ongoing legal dispute—a view that the author feels is “ethically unacceptable. ” Company A is threatening legal action against the authors if details of the case are published, and Company B would also potentially have an action for defamation. What should be done?