http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7334/384/c
BMJ 2002;324:384 ( 16 February )
Caroline White London
The editorial board of a European journal has been charged with wrongly
accusing an author of misleading the scientific community and imposing
sanctions on him without due process.
The author, who had complained to the Danish Committees on Scientific
Dishonesty about the journal’s stance, was also charged with redundant
publication and violating accepted principles on disclosure when submitting a
manuscript.
The Danish Committees’ subcommittee on health and medical science took its
decision last month after taking advice from a specially appointed ad hoc
committee.
The dispute between Professor Hans Bisgaard of University Hospital,
Copenhagen, and Professor Marc Decramer, editor in chief of the European
Respiratory Journal, arose after the latter informed Professor Bisgaard and
his coauthor that they would be banned from publishing in the journal for two
years.
The ban was imposed on the grounds that Professor Bisgaard had misled the
scientific community by submitting data that, although similar to those he had
already published in the November 2000 issue of the American Journal of
Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, directly contradicted them.
Professor Bisgaard had also failed adequately to reference the data from the
published paper.
The European Respiratory Journal had already taken issue with
Professor Bisgaard over alleged duplicate publication of the data, which he
denied. And he claimed the reference omission was unintentional and had been a
mistake by his inexperienced coauthor. But he was not given any opportunity to
refute the allegation of conflicting data before the imposition of the ban.
Professor Decramer also informed the editor of the US journal, Dr Martin
Tobin, of his action. Dr Tobin began a separate evaluation by two reviewers,
with a view to retracting the published paper. But the evaluations found in
favour of Professor Bisgaard, although they noted his failure to disclose prior
publication of data.
Professor Decramer also failed to respond to the findings of two experts
engaged by Professor Bisgaard. These refuted the allegation of contradictory
data and considered the ban inappropriate, prompting the author to complain to
the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty.
The ad hoc committee set up to hear the case consisted of Dr Richard Smith,
editor of the BMJ, Professor Asger Dirksen, of the Copenhagen County
Hospital, Gentofte, Peter Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Center and
Daniel Andersen, emeritus professor at Copenhagen University. It found that the
complainant had not produced contradictory results and had not duplicated data.
But the submission represented redundant publication, and they considered that
the complainant had deliberately failed to disclose prior publication.
The committee concluded that Professor Decramer had wrongly accused the
author of producing contradictory results and duplicate publication. And they judged
that sanctions had been imposed without due process.
The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty recommended that the journal’s
decision be reviewed. Professor Decramer said that specified procedures had
been followed, but he promised to revise them according to the standards
recommended by the ad hoc committee.
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