Misconduct by researchers and authors

Most scientific research is conducted properly and reported honestly but a few authors invent or manipulate data to reach fraudulent conclusions. Other types of misconduct include de-liberately providing incomplete or improperly processed data, failure to follow ethical procedures, failure to obtain informed consent, breach of patient confidentiality, improper award or denial of authorship, failure to declare competing interests, du-plicate submission and plagiarism. Editors, peer reviewers and publishers may also act wrongly. Good practice guidelines are available from the International Committee of Medical Jour-nal Editors (The Vancouver Group) and the Council of Scien-ce Editors, amongst others. The Committee on Publication Et-hics provides flowcharts to assist editors deal with authorial misconduct. Examples are provided of cases involving epi-demiological or public health research, reported to COPE over the last 9 years. Suggestions are offered as to how miscon-duct might be handled in future