If I have an ethical concern of a published paper... What should I do?
In my country, there is a very great "gray area" in cell therapy. And, on a recently published paper in the "covid-rush",, the researchers administered MSCs from a "GMP-laboratory" to COVID-19 patients. Although the pilot study is registered in clinicaltrial.gov, there is no record in the national regulatory agency's website nor any record for the GMP certificate of the facilities from which the cells came.
As a researcher in the area and a concern citizen, I think this mislead information is very critical for the development of the area and also for the patients seeking for proved therapies. But also, I understand that this could be irrelevant in the light of the evidence of the results observed from the cell infusion.
So... what would you do?
My suggestion is to report it. The question then becomes to whom? That's the problem. There are really no good places to report such a thing because none exist. At this point I would suggest relevant journals and institutions. Best wishes, David Booth
@Dear Dr. Lilia Carolina,
Your concerns regarding ethical issues are quite justifiable as
there is no record in the national regulatory agency's website nor any record for the GMP certificate of the facilities from which the cells came.
Regards,
Dear Lilia
In each country there should be a research ethics council or committee that oversees and cares about the well-being of patients and good practices in each scientific research. I assume this ethics committee will oversee this investigation that you are talking about. Your doubts should be directed to this ethics committee
luis
From your question it is not clear to me whether you alleging fraud or just unreliable science. If the former the following is relevant. One (probably several people) of the better (un)known data detectives is Clare Francis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Francis_(science_critic)). I think their usual approach is to do the detective work and then submit it to the university. Submitting to the journal is another option, and from what I have heard (e.g., from discussions generally on https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/, but today's blog is about bad journals). Whether you want to do this alone or with "Clare" or someone, and whether you want to use your real name (if you are using your real name on researchgate you probably already are identified) or not, is your decision.
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