What is it about?
We did a postal survey of 155 middle-level researchers from 9 medical institutions across India to determine the prevalence of publication misconduct which they had observed among their colleagues. The most commonly observed misconduct was gift authorship (65%); followed by alteration of data (56%), plagiarism (53%); and ghost authorship (33.5%).
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Why is it important?
A majority of respondents in the present study reported witnessing publication misconduct, thereby revealing the common occurrence of this problem among Indian biomedical researchers; underscoring the need for more training in this field for young researchers, and strict action by regulatory authorities as and when such incidents are identified.
Perspectives
In addition to wastage of resources, research/publication misconduct raises question about the validity of scientific research in the minds of the lay persons.We were surprised by the widespread publication misconduct reported in this study, more so, when all participants from one particular institute refused to respond to the survey.
Dr Devendra Mishra
Maulana Azad Medical College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Publication misconduct among medical professionals in India, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, April 2014, Forum for Medical Ethics Society,
DOI: 10.20529/ijme.2014.026.
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