BMJ  2003;326:1224-1225 (7 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7401.1224

Editorial

Editorial misconduct

Medical editors need effective self regulation

As with members of any group—be they doctors, politicians, or cardinals—some editors misbehave. Managing their misbehaviour is complicated by widespread devotion to the principle of editorial freedom, a devotion that is energetically promoted by editors. When an organisation takes the nuclear option of firing its editor—as the American Medical Association did in 1999—the roof falls in.^{1 2} How can the circle of editorial independence and the need to discipline erring editors, of whom there are many, be squared? The answer may be self regulation, some sort of general medical journalists council.

Regular readers of the BMJ will imagine that it is my own misbehaviour that prompts me to meditate on the theme of editorial misconduct. My sins in the past two months include publishing an obituary seen by many as a hatchet job,^{3 4} publishing research funded by the tobacco industry that implied that passive smoking did not kill,⁵ carrying an offensive cover on the journal that depicted doctors as pigs, drug company representatives as lizards, and a bemused patient as a guinea pig, and publishing a study highly sceptical of the private finance initiative in the run up to the Scottish parliamentary elections.⁶ The obituary sin has been referred to the Press Complaints Commission, a body that provides self regulation for the British press, and I will of course accept its ruling. The commission wrestles mostly, however, with the monster that is the British tabloid press and is not well suited to pass judgment on more scientific and professional issues.

It is not my own sins that prompt this editorial but rather the story of how Human Immunology fired its guest editor for publishing an article with political content but left the editor in chief in post despite some doubtful behaviour (p 1262).⁷ Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, a professor of immunology and cell biology in Madrid, was asked by the editor of Human Immunology, Nicole Suciu-Foca, a professor in New York, to edit a theme issue on anthropology and genetic markers. He was given little or no guidance on what was expected. Nor was it clear whether the language would be (or actually was) copy edited—despite English not being the first language of most of the contributors, including the guest editor.

The problems arose with Arnaiz-Villena's keynote paper for the issue, which concluded that Jews and Palestinians are genetically very close and that their "rivalry is based on cultural and religious, but not genetic, differences." It wasn't the science that caused the problem but words and phrases in the article that seemed political—particularly in the highly emotional climate that followed the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington (the issue was published in November 2001). Karen Shashok—an American who lives in Spain and works as a translator and editor—argues that most of the problems arose from lapses in translation and editing rather than political intent.⁷ Whatever the cause the response was dramatic. The editor fired the guest editor and had the article retracted from Medline and deleted from the online edition of the journal. Subscribers were even invited "to physically remove the pages" from their copies of the journal. Was this an over-reaction? Was the editor making the guest editor the scapegoat for her own failures? The editor, the owners (the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics), and the publishers (Elsevier Science) have not answered these questions, and this might be an ideal case to refer to an international medical scientific press council.

Doug Altman (a statistical adviser to the BMJ), Iain Chalmers (one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration), and Andrew Herxheimer (a former editor of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin) advocated the setting up of such a council more than a decade ago.⁸ Their important paper included three examples of unpunished editorial misconduct, but there were many examples of editorial misconduct before their article and have been many since.

Sir Cyril Burt stars in the classic case of editorial misconduct.⁹ His important—and much disputed—work on intelligence was important in designing education systems. He founded a journal called the British Journal of Statistical Psychology and was its editor. He published 63 of his own articles and often altered the work of others without permission, sometimes adding favourable references to his own work. Once he published a letter he wrote himself under a pseudonym and a response he also wrote himself under another pseudonym in order to attack a colleague.

Malcolm Pearce was assistant editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology when the journal published two fraudulent papers by him in one issue.¹⁰ The editor, Geoffrey Chamberlain, was a coauthor on one of the papers. Pearce was found guilty of serious professional misconduct. Chamberlain resigned as editor. More recently, George Lundberg was fired as the editor of JAMA for speeding up the publication of a study that showed that many American students did not consider oral sex as sex.^{1 2} The study was relevant to the attempt to impeach the then US president, Bill Clinton.

Pearce and Chamberlain were clearly guilty of editorial misconduct, but most editors—and indeed, almost everybody apart from the senior officers of the American Medical Association—would not regard what Lundberg did as misconduct. One journalist observed that it was strange to fire an editor for being topical (because he was fired for speeding up the publication of the article, not for publishing it). Other cases—including those of Arnaiz-Villena and Suciu-Foca—require analysis and judgment.

A system of self regulation could thus be useful for disciplining editors guilty of misconduct, clearing those who may be wrongly accused, sorting out complicated cases, and developing a code of best practice for editors. At the moment there is no such system, but there are various bodies—including the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)—that might produce one. COPE already has a code of practice for editors¹¹ and is developing a system for hearing complaints against editors who are members. It will be holding a meeting on editorial misconduct on 24 October (anybody interested in attending the meeting contact Rachel Fetches, rfetches{at}bmjgroup.com). One thing is certain: if a system of self regulation is to be taken seriously it will have to include people who are not editors.

BMJ

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Education and debate p 1262

Competing interests: RS is deputy chairman of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an unpaid position. The BMJ and all the journals published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited are members of COPE.

References

1. Davies HT, Rennie D. Independence, governance, and trust: redefining the relationship between JAMA and the AMA. JAMA 1999;281: 2344-6.[Free Full Text]
2. Smith R. The firing of brother George. BMJ 1999;318: 210.[Free Full Text]
3. Richmond C. David Horrobin. BMJ 2003;326: 885.[Free Full Text]
4. Davies S. Obituary for David Horrobin: Summary of rapid responses. BMJ 2003;326: 1089.[Free Full Text]
5. Enstrom JE, Kabat GC. Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98. BMJ 2003;326: 1057-61.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
6. Dunnigan MG, Pollock AM. Downsizing of acute inpatient beds associated with private finance initiative: Scotland's case study. BMJ 2003;326: 905-8.[Free Full Text]
7. Shashock K. Pitfalls of editorial miscommunication. BMJ 2003;326: 1262-4.[Free Full Text]
8. Altman DG, Chalmers I, Herxheimer A. Is there a case for an international medical scientific press council? JAMA 1994;272: 166-7.[Abstract]
9. Rennie D. Misconduct and journal peer review. In: Godlee F, Jefferson T, eds. Peer review in health sciences. London: BMJ Books, 1999.
10. Lock S. Lessons from the Pearce affair: handling scientific fraud. BMJ 1995;310: 1547-8.[Free Full Text]
11. Committee on Publication Ethics. Guidelines on good publication practice. Duties of editors. http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/cope1999/gpp/gpp_dut.phtml (accessed 30 May 2003).

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