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Jason Roberts, Publication Ethics and The Journal of Sexual Medicine, The Journal of Sexual Medicine, Volume 6, Issue 10, October 2009, Pages 2625–2627, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01474.x
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From the launch of The Journal of Sexual Medicine (JSM) in 2004 to the time of writing (July 2009), over 2,400 original submissions have been received by this journal. With such a large volume of submissions, it is inevitable that some ethical questions would arise. In reality, the number of cases has been surprisingly low, with not even a handful of breaches of such significance, they warranted investigation. Despite the comparative absence of problem manuscripts, The JSM has decided to take a proactive step and develop a set of publication guidelines to define what we interpret as acceptable behavior. As this editorial will outline, there is a growing movement in medical journal publishing to challenge authors to take responsibility for their work and its veracity. With the implementation of a publication ethics policy, our standards will be visible to all.
Ethics in a medical research context typically refers to issues of patient harm and the appropriateness of experiments and clinical research trials. Related to results generation and data collection and analysis, ethics may also refer to universally recognized disreputable behavior: fabrication and falsification. Once data are made public, unethical behavior may emerge from the inappropriate use or repurposing of that data, usually manifest in cases of plagiarism. Such ethical actions are probably self-evident to most researchers—although clearly not all if data on the prevalence of observed transgressions are to be believed [1].
