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Letter to the Editor|Articles in Press

Effective quality control in the medical literature: investigation and retraction vs inaction

Published:February 28, 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2023.02.022
      How should editors and publishers act on concerns raised about the trustworthiness of published papers? Despite the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) [
      Committee on Publication Ethics
      COPE flowcharts: Handling of post-publication critiques v1.
      ] guidelines, journal responses can be slow, inadequate, and opaque [
      • Holbeach N.
      • Freckelton I.
      • Mol B.W.
      Journal editors and publishers’ legal obligations with respect to medical research misconduct.
      ]. The potential harms of failure to retract untrustworthy studies–to clinical practice and public confidence–are considerable. We describe here our experience with six journal editors with whom we raised concerns.
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