Data Fabrication and Falsification: Case study

Case study. A manuscript has been submitted to a journal. After being sent out for peer review, one of the reviewers contacted the editor and said that she had reviewed the manuscript previously for another journal. What concerned her about the manuscript was that, in the submission to the other journal, a time course experiment was shown in which intracellular calcium was measured by fura-2. The external solution was said to be NaCl in the original submission. However, the identical figure is in this manuscript, only with the external solution being stated to contain LiCl. In the reviewers original review, she had made the major comment that the experiment should be rerun with LiCl. What should be done?

Questions for discussion:

1. How would you go about checking whether or not this author actually had rerun the experiment?

2. How would you ensure that all authors knew of the ethical breach, if that was determined to be the case?

3. What sanctions would you, as a member of a publications committee, suggest for these authors if they were deemed guilty?

4. Would your recommendation apply to all of the authors, or only to those who knew of the ethical misconduct?

5. What about the integrity of the reviewer? In order for the reviewer to remember such experimental detail, it is likely that he/she retained a copy of the original confidential submission, an action contraindicated by most journals.