NOTICEJ. McKinley, H. Cattermole, C.W. Oliver. The quality of surgical information on the Internet. J R Coll Surg Edinb 1999; 44(4): 265-8It has been brought to the attention of The Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh by Dr Eysenbach (Department of Clinical Social Medicine, University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany) that an article published in the August issue of the Journal failed to acknowledge some of the ideas expressed by Dr Eysenbach in two recent publications and, in particular, that part of the text was identical to an on-line article published by Dr Eysenbach on med-PICs (at http://medpics.org). The Editorial Board, after careful consideration, asked the senior author of the article, Mr Christopher Oliver, to address the issues raised by Dr Eysenbach and to write a letter of apology, which is published in this issue of the Journal. The article has been withdrawn. Dr Eysenbach has agreed with this course of action. The Editorial Board, following discussion with Mr Oliver, believes that carelessness, rather than a desire to deceive, was the underlying basis for this state of affairs. In an era of ever-rapidly expanding publications, especially on the World Wide Web, with its rapid and often loosely regulated publication formats, lack of acknowledgement and direct transfer of published data is an ever increasing risk and pitfall for authors. The Editorial Board regards such infringements as matters of serious concern. We feel that this unfortu-nate episode has important lessons for all concerned and those involved in the dissemination of information and publication of medical/scientific articles. PROFESSOR O.E. EREMIN LETTER OF APOLOGY FROM MR. C. W. OLIVER 17th October 1999 To: Professor OE Eremin The Editor The Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Dear Professor Eremin I recently submitted an article to you entitled “The quality of surgical information on the Internet” which was published in the August 1999 edition of the Journal. Since this time it has been brought to my attention by Dr G Eysenbach that my article contained certain paragraphs which are broadly similar to articles which he has published at http://medpics.org and which I did not reference in my paper. I would like to apologise to both Dr Eysenbach and yourself for this situation which I assure you was entirely unintentional and occurred as a result of an oversight in the preparation of the manuscript. I had been in Email correspondence with Dr Eysenbach prior to publication and also sent him the article by Email after it had appeared in the Journal, which led to his identification of the problem. Yours sincerely C. W. OLIVER |