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Publication Ethics:
Science at its informative best
Diaa E. Rizk*
Academic publishing is a
scholarly achievement and provides a medium to make explicit, both
credit and responsibility, for intellectual published articles. The
benefits of collection of clinical information on patients from
dissemination of findings in printed and electronic format and the
positive influences of biomedical publishing on career promotion,
advancement of medical knowledge, institutional prestige and sponsors of
grants are all well recognized. Responsibility for the published work
that is inseparable from those merits is, however, not widely accepted.
Medicine is a profession based on trust, integrity, philanthropy and
altruism. This societal expectation of the profession is associated with
an evolving public awareness of the core values of scientific enquiry
such as critical analysis, evidence-based inference, hypothesis
validation, inherent statistical bias, conscientious motives and
research autonomy.
Members of the medical profession and the public, hence, generally agree
that a culture of “zero tolerance” should permeate for academic
dishonesty, particularly publication misconduct. Increasing examples of
publication misconduct has been observed over the past decade indicating
that modern medicine’s key doctrines of scrutiny, trustworthiness and
accountability are being undermined by unethical practices and attitudes
of a few.
There is now growing concern among the research scientists about this
behavior and progressive appreciation of the need to urgently address
all these issues. World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and the
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) have thus
recently issued important policy statements on good publication
practice.
Basic Publication
Ethics
* Study subjects in clinical
trial do not often truly understand the nature of intervention, accept
the placebo concept and enjoy individual autonomy to give “informed”
consent.
* The balance of equity between physician control and patient
participation in different parts of the world is also a contentious
issue.
* Improved access to health services as a result of research enrolment
may constitute an inappropriate incentive that compromises the consent
procedures and qualify for research misconduct.
* The scientific literature can be skewed by redundant publication with
significant and dire consequences if results are fabricated or
inadvertently included more than once into meta-analyses.
* Stringent rules and firm sanctions should be globally enforced and
mutually imposed by academic authorities, regulatory bodies and
publishers to publicly expose and discredit fraud, duplicate publication
and plagiarism. To achieve this Web-based resources with powerful search
engines are currently available to facilitate detection of these
notoriously overlooked breaches of the publishing code and literary
aptitude (www.plagiarism.com).
* Author(s) should agree in writing to allow the journal to review the
raw data and signed patient consent forms or ethical
committee/institutional review board approval of the study, when and if
requested.
* This procedure verifies and authenticates the reported methodology and
results. Furthermore each author should state in writing whether or not
he/she has a financial relationship with an organization that might have
a vested interest in the conduct and reporting of the study.
* This information should be shared with the reviewers and published
with each article. Authors should also state in writing that they have
had full control of all primary data.
Registration of
Clinical Trials
* Prior registration of
clinical trials within a freely accessible public domain at submission
is now a mandatory requirement for a consortium of several reputable
biomedical journals to eliminate publication bias and document authors
contribution.
* A prototype registry is www.clinicaltrials.gov sponsored by the United
States National Library of Medicine.
* Editorial and reviewer decisions should be objective, autonomous and
non-discriminatory against the geographical origins of the manuscript
including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race or
religion of the authors.
* A possible strategy to minimize this “affiliation” bias is possible
through blinded peer-review systems that mask author and institution
identity in the submitted manuscript.
* Everyone who has made substantial and intellectual contribution to the
study on which the article is based (the research question, design,
analysis, interpretation and written description) should be an author
but sometimes this role in not mentioned in the manuscript which at
times promotes “ghost authorship”.
* Including names of certain authors only because of their reputation,
authority or friendship “guest authorship” constitutes violation of
publication ethics.
* Performing technical services, translating text, recruiting patients
for study, supplying materials and providing funding or administrative
and logistic support are not sufficient for authorship. However, these
contributions can be acknowledged in the manuscript.
Committee on
Publication Ethics
* The expertise and services
offered by the Committee on Publication Ethics [COPE] should be
utilized.
* COPE is an independent and non-profit body that gives impartial and
anonymous advice and suggests action algorithms and decision flowcharts
in difficult cases of publication misconduct and provides updated
information about the prevalence of various types of misconduct and
other ethical issues.
CONCLUSIONS
Publication misconduct can ONLY
BE MINIMIZED by:
* Perceiving the double dividends of combining ethical research conduct,
open reporting of results with good clinical practice.
* Treating our professional signature with the respect it deserves.
* Understanding the tyranny and politics of industrial sponsorship.
* Inhibiting our personal parochialism and scientific prejudice.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Publication misconduct will
not be checked successfully as long as training in publication ethics,
standards and responsible research performance is not ensured.
2. Academic health organizations and biomedical publishing houses should
not presume that young aspiring physicians will automatically,
unconsciously and passively learn publication ethics. They need to be
taught and educated in publication ethics.
3. Using paper cases similar to those depicted in the COPE referral
scenarios, explicit ethical issues can be addressed. Other important
steps which need to be taken include creating awareness and identifying
misconceptions thereby facilitating development of academic virtue,
professional sensitivity, personal integrity and moral reasoning.
Hopefully all this will eventually lead to “best” publication ethics
being practiced by all those concerned.
Useful Resources
Committee on Publication Ethics
[COPE]. For all general enquiries contact Secretary, COPE, BMJ
Publishing Group Ltd.,BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JR
United Kingdom. Email: cope@bmjgroup.com Website Enquiries ; Email:
lcamp@bmjgroup.com For submitting a case to COPE, Please read COPE
guidance notes on presenting a case to the committee.
REFERENCES
1. WAME policy statements on
authorship. The Editorial Policy Committee (www.WAME.org).
2. Graf C, Wager E, Bowman A, Fiack S, Scott-Lichter D, Robinson A.Best
practice guidelines on publication ethics: a publisher’s perspective.
Int J Clin Pract 2007;61 (Suppl 152):1-26.
3. Hilton P. Of porcupines and poodles-a joint challenge to industry and
the profession. Int Urogynecol J 2007;18:3-11.
4. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform
requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Writing
and editing for biomedical publication (Updated February 2006). (www.ICMJE.org).
5. Krleza-Jeric K, Chan AW, Dickersin K, Sim I, Grimshaw J, Gluud G for
the Ottawa Group. Principles for international registration of protocol
information and results from human trials of health related
interventions: Ottawa statement (part 1). BMJ 2005;330:956-8.
* Prof. of Obstetrics and
Gynaecology,
Ain Shams University, Cario - Egypt.
E-mail: rizk.diaa@gmail.com
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