Integrity and misconduct in biomedical research

Abstract

Editorial Boards of mainstream journals occasionally face ethical misconducts in received manuscripts. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) provides recommendations for editors on how to deal with suspected ethical misconduct in either received or published manuscripts. The manuscript is rejected when malpractice is observed during the peer review process, however, if the misconduct is detected after the publication, the publication will be retracted. The Revista Chilena de Pediatría (Chilean Journal of Pediatrics) has not been exempt from these type of conflicts. In this article, we analyze different aspects regarding the lack of integrity in publications, such as authorship, plagiarism, and conflict of interest. We can conclude that malpractices take place mainly due to the lack of knowledge of the authors rather than intent to defraud. It is expected that this article will succeed in instructing and sensitizing our researchers on good practices in research and publication, and contribute, as far as possible, to prevent this actions in the manuscripts sent to our Journal.