Open Medical Publishing policy concerning withdrawal, retraction and replacement of published articles.

In the world of academic publishing, when a paper is submitted to a particular journal, the decision as to whether it will be accepted for publication lies solely with the Editor in Chief. The Editor in Chief takes into consideration the general criteria set out by the members of the Editorial Board with appropriate regard to the need to satisfy the legal requirements covering plagiarism, libel and copyright regulations.

A rigorous control of the quality and integrity of the articles published has meant that academic publishing provides a permanent and integral archive of the procedures and achievements of scientific research. In this context, Open Medical Publishing strives to promote the circulation of scientific research, offering cost-effective solutions to authors, libraries and scientific societies, with specific regard to the ethical, moral and legal concerns involved.

In this context, it is recognized that, on rare occasions, a published article must at a later date be withdrawn from publication or a disclaimer made concerning its content. Such a decision is only made after careful consideration of the individual case and is the result of sound and conscientious evaluation on the part of the Editor in Chief.

• Article withdrawal or retraction: this is applied to submitted papers accepted for publication that are for the moment only available in a pre-publication form (“Early Release or Ahead of Print”). These sometime contain errors or are articles that may have already been published and then mistakenly resubmitted for publication elsewhere. In rarer cases, these papers may not observe established ethical requirements, there may be some inconsistency in the declaration of authors’ contributions, or data may have been presented the integrity of which may be in doubt, etc. Articles may also be retracted to allow authors’ to correct any errors that had not been identified before submission. In the case of an article being withdrawn, the article in question will be removed from the Open Medical Publishing website and a statement issued confirming that this decision has been made in accordance with established Open Medical Publishing policy on article withdrawal or retraction. In the case of an article being retracted by the authors’ or by the Editor in Chief of the Journal concerned, the article in question will be removed and a declaration to this effect, signed by the authors and/or the Editor in Chief, will be published in its place. This declaration will be clearly presented in the Table of Contents of the Journal with a link to the original article.
• Article removal: this may apply to articles that, once published, are later subjected to legal restraints imposed on the publisher or on the authors’ or the copyright holder. On the Open Medical Publishing website, the text of the article will be replaced by a declaration confirming that the article has been removed in response to legal concerns.
• Article replacement: authors may wish to replace an article that is recognized as containing incorrect or misleading data such as to pose a serious threat to public health. A link will be provided to access the corrected article with confirmation of the paper status. A request for an article to be replaced may also be made by the publisher.

The Open Medical Publishing electronic archives hold all articles accepted for publication, published, withdrawn, retracted or replaced. Open Medical Publishing policy concerning article withdrawal, retraction and replacement will be regularly up-dated and made available on the Open Medical Publishing website.

You are also invited to consult the websites of the National Library of Medicine and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.