Why Should the Journal of Clinical Microbiology Apologize for Publishing a Paper Plagiarized from Its Archives?

LETTER

In the March 2011 issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (Journal), a retraction was published in which the authors stated the following: “we realized after our article had been published that major parts of the text had been plagiarized almost verbatim from Colombo et al.” (3). The plagiarists apologized “to Prof. Colombo and to Journal of Clinical Microbiology readers” (3). However, no explicit word of apology came from the Journal itself. There are at least two reasons for which we believe the Journal should also have apologized to its contributors and readers.

First, the article by Colombo et al. (4) was published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in 2006. Yet, in 2010, plagiarists were able to copy not just parts but the entire article and have their plagiary published in the same Journal without notice. Clearly, the review process in 2010 completely failed the layers of editors, editorial board members, and ad hoc reviewers (1) who evaluated the Colombo et al. paper just 4 years earlier.

Second, the plagiary (2) underwent a peer review that was at best complaisant and not reflecting the reputation of the Journal (http://jcm.asm.org/) and at worst an exercise that amounted to no review. In reading the plagiary to see if anything should have been revised, even though plagiarism would have remained undetected, we found at least the following six internal inconsistencies:

• The incidence rates were expressed only per 1,000 admissions but not per patient days, as indicated in “Statistical analysis.”

• Males comprised 58.64% of cases (as stated in Table 1 of the article) and not 64.02%, as stated in the text.

• Cancer was documented for 311 cases (31.61%), and 20 of these cancers (2.03%) were hematologic malignancies (Table 1), as opposed to 195 (19.84%) and 35 (17.94%), respectively, as stated in the text.

• At the time of candidemia, 120 patients were receiving a systemic antifungal agent (fluconazole, 78; amphotericin B, 31; itraconazole, 3; voriconazole, 3; echinocandins, 5) and not 122 patients, as they stated.

• Candida krusei comprised 2.13% (Table 2) and not 5% of cases, as stated in the text.

• Table 2 is titled “Species distribution and incidence, ” with no incidence data in the table.

More comments could be made, such as regarding the discussion of data from Italy using a citation from Chile (page 4203, reference 40) (2). But, while we recognize that reviewers did not have the benefit of hindsight we now have, the above inconsistencies were so obvious that the submitters should have been queried about and/or asked to reconcile their inconsistencies, whether their submission was a plagiary or not.

If the Journal of Clinical Microbiology can gladly accept apologies from others who plagiarized an article initially published elsewhere (5), then the Journal certainly can extend its own apologies to its contributors and readers for publishing a poorly reviewed plagiary of its own archived article.