10-7
Ethical Issues in Scientific Publishing
Reviewer Confidentiality Rule #3 Judge the content of an article only on the basis of published findings. What if you know something that has a bearing on the content of an article, but it is not common knowledge? For example, suppose it is a personal observation of yours or a colleague’s but it is not publicly known and has not been published anywhere. Once again, you have to keep that information confidential. In this case, it cannot be divulged to the author. The Department of Health and Human Services says The review must be objective. It shall be based solely on scientific evaluation of the material under review within the context of published information and should not be influenced by scientific information not publicly available. Reviewer Confidentiality Rule #4 Never reveal to the author your identity as a reviewer. It is also important not to reveal to an author that you have reviewed his or her manuscript. Journals and publishers count on this to reassure authors that their work received confidential and unbiased reviews. Any such breach in confidentiality is an embarrassment for you and the journal and jeopardizes the confidentiality of the review process. [Preceding material from: Guidelines for the Conduct of Research within the Public Health Service. Bethesda, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Public Health Service, 1992 (also see Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural Research Programs at NIH: www.nih.gov/news/irnews/guidelines.htm).] The Case of the “Borrowed” Review The following case illustrates some of the confidentiality issues in peer review. Please read the case and consider the principles listed above and the questions at the end. Case Study: Dr. John Smith, an expert in Drosophila embryology, has agreed to write a review of his specialty for the leading developmental biology journal. He has nearly finished writing the review when another embryology journal sends him a manuscript by Dr. Douglas Jones for peer review. This journal explicitly keeps the identity of reviewers confidential. To John’s delight, the manuscript presents some novel findings pertaining to the subject of his review. Because John believes the readers of the review should be able to read the latest information, he decides to summarize Dr. Jones’ findings in his review, even though these findings have not been published yet. John also does not know whether Dr. Jones’ paper
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