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| image 1 |
The article was discussed in February 2013 and from
then onwards, authors started to contribute and to edit to a draft manuscript. The
draft manuscript was completed on the 11th October 2013 and
consequently submitted it to the “Nutrients” journal (See image 1) (Examine.com article is dated March 12, 2014). Unfortunately
the journal, after a few months rejected the manuscript and we decided to use
the reviewers comments to further edit and submit it elsewhere. The next
journal to receive our manuscript was “Nutrition and Metabolism”.
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| image 2 |
After the peer-review process (three reviewers and two
month spent in corrections), the Nutrition and Metabolism, with an impact
factor of 3.36, accepted our manuscript on the 24th of May 2014.
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| image 3 |
During the drafting process of the manuscript a number
of commercial websites were consulted to find any additional related
information. After the revision of references provided by Examine.com we found
inconsistencies in content and conclusion with respect to alcohol consumption
and muscular hypertrophy. Hence why our manuscript reports a different
discussion and a different conclusion, both being compatible with the
scientific literature provided.
To emphasize our point, as researchers we always read
the policies of each journal before submitting any work. Those found in the BMC
group stated clearly that overlapping of open science sources (i.e. commercial
websites) is usually permitted (See image 3). In addition having submitted to a
journal with a high impact factor and having used the PRISMA statement (the
statement consists of a 27-item checklist and a four-phase flow diagram) - (the
checklist includes items deemed essential for transparent reporting of a
systematic review), as a guideline in the writing of a manuscript. Therefore no
gray sources of information (i.e. a non-peer reviewed, commercial web-iste) was
cited in the manuscript (We reported all appropriate references, no more, no less). However, as
some of the information provided by examine.com did not conflict with our
findings and as they were relevant, we decided to include those into our
manuscript.
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| image 4 |
We would like to point out that the editorial policies
of BMC allow overlapping of open science (http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/editorialpolicies#exceptionsTable). In addition, we also asked for the copyright
permission of both figures presented in the manuscript, underlining our
intellectual honesty (See image 5)
. Of course we are not new to publications practices and know
how to avoid this type of situation but apparently being in line with the guidelines
of a publishing corporation is not enough any longer.
This story continued for nearly 3 month; during this
period several emails were exchanged between us and the editorial office. ‘Surprisingly’ the editors finally decided to retract the
article.
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| image 5 |
What will happen now? We don’t know if the website
will copy part of our original work and claim it as theirs. In addition to such
event we would like to point out that any web-master could modify the date of
creation of a web-site so who can now tell any longer who the original author
is? Interestingly the authors have recently received an e-mail by Nutrition and Metabolism
stating that the manuscript was viewed more than 11.000 times (See image 6). Clearly,
researchers seem to be interested more in the content rather than plagiarism
accusations, as a retraction notice was not yet published.
We retain that this is a very delicate case.
The nature of the controversy between an university
and a commercial company appears to be seriously damaging the world of
nutrition in science.
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| image 6 |
Prof. Antonino Bianco
On behalf of all Co-Authors
