Ethics and scientific publication.
This article summarizes the major categories of ethical violations encountered during submission, review, and publication of scientific articles. We discuss data fabrication and falsification, plagiarism, redundant and duplicate publication, conflict of interest, authorship, animal and human welfare, and reviewer responsibility. In each section, pertinent historical background and citation of relevant regulations and statutes are provided. Furthermore, a specific case(s) derived from actual situations is(are) presented. These cases were chosen to highlight the complexities that investigators and journals must face when dealing with ethical issues. A series of discussion questions follow each case. It is our hope that by increasing education and awareness of ethical matters relevant to scientific investigation and publication, deviations from appropriate conduct will be reduced.
Benos
Dale J
DJ
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 35294-0005, USA. benos@physiology.uab.edu
Fabres
Jorge
J
Farmer
John
J
Gutierrez
Jessica P
JP
Hennessy
Kristin
K
Kosek
David
D
Lee
Joo Hyoung
JH
Olteanu
Dragos
D
Russell
Tara
T
Shaikh
Faheem
F
Wang
Kai
K
D000818:Animals; D001319:Authorship; D006801:Humans; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000941:ethics*; D015714:Plagiarism; D011642:Publications / Q000941:ethics*; D015871:Scientific Misconduct / Q000941:ethics*