MULTIPLE FAILURE TO DECLARE A RELEVANT CONFLICT OF INTEREST
During peer review of a manuscript submitted to journal Y, one of the referees indicated a belief that at least one of the authors had not declared a relevant conflict of interest (CoI). The article indicated that the authors had no relevant CoIs. The referee provided a URL to a press release that supported the allegation. It appears that one of the authors is the discoverer of a series of compounds that are the subject of the article. The compounds have been licensed to a company. The authors were asked to clarify the situation and have provided a revised declaration that acknowledges the CoI.
Journal Y also published another article by this group on the same subject that contained a declaration indicating no relevant CoI. Journal Y is in the process of indicating to the authors that a correction to the published article with the correct CoI declaration will be necessary.
Journal Y is also aware that another article by this group was published in journal Z six months earlier and did not reveal the CoI. Journal Z has a stated policy on declaring CoIs that we strongly suspect was in place when this article was submitted. Journal Y is intending to contact Journal Z to inform them.
COPE advice
It is the editor’s role to police all journals? Maybe you shouldn't look for other affected articles sought out and other affected journals be alerted. Editors should spend their time editing not policing. However, institution should be informed, asking it to investigate, but warned about making any allegations. The seriousness of omission of a CoI was compounded by its repetition but only if it had been done knowingly and if the omission occurred after it had been made clear to the author that this was not good behaviour.
