Ethical and Legal Considerations

The Ethical and Legal Considerations chapter of the 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style summarizes best practices and cites examples of the determinants of ethical behavior and legal concerns as they relate to scientific publication. Topics covered include authorship responsibility; acknowledgments; duplicate publication; scientific misconduct; conflicts of interest; intellectual property: access, rights, and management; confidentiality; protecting research participants’ and patients’ rights in scientific publication; defamation and libel; editorial freedom and integrity; editorial responsibilities, roles, procedures, and policies; advertisements, advertorials, sponsorship, supplements, reprints, and e-prints; and release of information to the public and journal/author relations with the news media. Several new policies: mandate for a single corresponding author has been relaxed; designations such as co–first authorship or co–senior authorship may be allowed; the ICMJE policy on sharing clinical trial data is now being followed; and a new option is presented for retraction and replacement in cases of pervasive error without evidence of misconduct or invalid science.