Simultaneous submission leading to duplicate publication: Scientific misconduct rears its ugly head.

As readers of Journal of Minimal Access Surgery (JMAS) are well aware, the Editorial team is always on guard against scientific misconduct, and this includes watching out for simultaneous submissions and duplicate or salami publications.

Punit Bansal and colleagues on February 21, 2008 submitted a manuscript to JMAS. After completion of the peer review the article was accepted on August 08, 2008 and the authors were informed of the decision. The article was subsequently published in the July-September 2008 issue of JMAS.[1] Earlier this year a member of the Editorial Board of the Indian Journal of Surgery (IJS) brought to our notice that an identical article was published by the authors in the IJS in 2011.[2] Going through the timeline of the article, it became apparent that the manuscript was submitted to the IJS on June 17, 2008, whilst it was under consideration for publication with JMAS. This matter was brought to the notice of the Dr. Bansal. He informed us that after hearing of its acceptance in JMAS in August 2008, he had sent several emails to the Editorial team of the IJS requesting them to retract the article from the IJS. He however could not produce any of these emails to corroborate this claim. Also, no explanation as to why the manuscript had been submitted to the IJS whilst under review with the JMAS was forthcoming. Unfortunately, we did not receive the courtesy of a reply to the email sent to the senior author from Department of Urology at IPGMER and SSKM Hospital, Kolkata.

After discussing the matter internally, the Editorial Board of JMAS has decided to retract the said article from JMAS, and we have informed the Editorial Team of the IJS of this decision.

All medical journals, including JMAS, require submission of a contributors’ form signed by all the authors declaring that “Neither this manuscript nor one with substantially similar content under my/our authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere.” It seems that sometimes authors do not read the declaration thoroughly or perhaps understand the implications of signing it. The practice of simultaneous submission is considered a violation of medical publishing ethics and is frowned upon for several reasons. Firstly, it leads to a waste of scientific resources including the time spent by peer reviewers and editors at more than one journal. Also, as in this case, if two journals accept and publish the same article it may lead to potential copyright infringement issues.

There are certain dos and don’ts that first authors should strictly adhere to:[34]

Never submit the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously.

If a manuscript that is under peer review at one journal is to be submitted to another journal:

Inform the co-authors and get their written consent.

Write to the Editor of the first journal, asking that the paper be withdrawn.

Get a formal communication from the Editor of the first journal that the article has been withdrawn from peer review process.

If such a communication is not received, do not submit the manuscript to another journal.

Preserve this communication and submit it to the second journal at the time of submission.