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International - Misconduct Cases
Possible Plagiarism Found Using MedlineŽ Searches
Volume 8, No. 2, March 2000
A researcher's questions about a cryptic note in a Danish medical
journal ended up making headlines in Polish newspapers, and creating
concerns about that country's ability to investigate charges of
research misconduct, according to the January 23, 1998, issue of
Science. Danish authors of a paper published in 1989 found a duplicate
of their abstract on MEDLINEŽ under other names, which subsequently
led a Danish committee to report that the principal Polish author
had admitted the plagiarism and apologized. No names were given
in the notice.
A subsequent search of the MEDLINEŽ database found 125 medical
papers published in a variety of specialties over a 13-year period
by Andrzej Jendryczko, a Polish engineer who does not hold a medical
degree. Comparisons of the texts of 90 papers with suspected-source
papers using MEDLINEŽ's "find related articles" function
turned up nearly 30 questionable papers. The Polish-educated M.D.-Ph.D.
who identified the extensive pattern of possible plagiarism was
dissatisfied with the Polish authorities' initial reactions to the
Danish findings, which was to put the researcher on 6 months of
paid leave.
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