AIIMS apology for reproducing Israeli author’s writings

Accepting the “similarities” between the articles,he blamed the error on a “junior” author. “The concluding paragraph is similar to the conclusions drawn in your article. This is an error as the part was penned by one of the junior authors,and proper reference was not provided. I sincerely regret this,and am changing my concluding paragraph accordingly. Your reference shall be provided in the conclusion too,with a specific mention that our results match your study,” Dr Sikka said in the email.

He also said that AIIMS will write to the editor of the journal,asking him/her to “publish the apology”.

“We are writing to the editor of the journal to publish our apology as ‘letter to editor’ or as a corrected manuscript. I sincerely assure you that we shall make every effort to get the corrections published soon,” it added.

Referring to another section where the text was reproduced,Dr Sikka said that the missing citation was the result of a typographical error. “The text in paragraph number 3 on page 1,099 of our article is same as in your article,but the reference has not been provided at the end of the paragraph. This is a typographical error as your article has been quoted as number 9 in references.”

The Indian Express had reported that Dr Migirov’s article,titled ‘Cochlear Implantation in Waardenburg’s Syndrome’,was published in the Acta Oto-Laryngologica journal in 2005,while Dr Deka’s article,titled ‘Cochlear Implantation in Waardenburg’s Syndrome-The Indian scenario’,was published in the same journal in 2010. Most of the text had been reproduced verbatim from the discussion,and the entire conclusion did not contain any citations.

In an email to the Indian Exress,Dr Migirov had said that this was a case of plagiarism,but as an author,she could not prevent her work from being copied. Dr Deka had told Indian Express that the errors had been made by junior residents in the ENT department of AIIMS.