Applying safeguards of research integrity to unethical organ donation and transplantation

• Published in: Journal of medical ethics Vol. 46; no. 10; pp. 685 - 686
• Main Author: Bramstedt, Katrina A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BMJ Publishing Group LTD 01.10.2020
• Subjects: Bioethics; Blood & organ donations; China; Experiments; Humans; Medical ethics; Medical research; Organ Transplantation; Research ethics; Scholarly publishing; Tissue and Organ Procurement; Transplants & implants; China; New Zealand; Australia; United States > US; Luxembourg; donation/procurement of organs/tissues; research ethics; publication ethics; transplantation
• ISSN: 0306-6800; 1473-4257
• DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2020-106535

Higgins’ et al recent paper1 presents a well-thought ethical analysis of the problems associated with the publication of unethical transplant research. More generally, research ethics committees never allow the use or reuse of data that has been collected without their required approval. Similarly, in many judicial settings, evidence is generally inadmissible when it is gathered illegally.2 Thus, journals and other publishers should follow in their footsteps and also roadblock any associated publications.Moreover, unethical organ donation and transplantation research is rife with integrity issues, which violate publication norms (eg, fabrication or falsification of the source of the donor organs; absent informed consent of living donors or donor families; funder conflict of interest). If these normally accepted exclusions3 are ignored, then publishers are turning off their moral compass and facilitating an attitude of ‘anything goes’ in the conduct of research. Table 1 presents a timeline of scholarly responses to the problem of publishing unethical transplant research. As shown, since 2007 there has been a slow evolution of changing publisher practices, yet more progress must be made, especially by the transplant journals published in China.