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A group of UK medical journal editors has issued best practice guidelines to help stem research misconduct, a problem characterised by its chairman as "endemic" in the United Kingdom and the United States. The guidelines, drawn up by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), are intended to promote and safeguard intellectual honesty at all stages in the research and publication cycle, from initial study design onwards. Ethical approval, data analysis, competing interests, authorship, peer review, redundant publication, and editors' duties are among the key areas addressed. The guidance also advises editors on how to investigate suspected cases and what sanctions may be suitably applied when misdemeanours have been detected. The committee was established in July 1997 (BMJ 1997;315:201-2), some two years after Malcolm Pearce, a senior gynaecologist at St George's Hospital in south London, was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council for fabricating evidence he reported in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He claimed to have successfully relocated an ectopic pregnancy and described a three year trial of a hormone treatment for recurrent miscarriage. Neither

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Ever since the end of the Second World War men who served on ships, both naval and merchant, which were involved in the transport of war materials to north Russia between 1941 and 1945 have sought recognition for their service with an appropriate campaign medal. They have failed to achieve this through a complicated muddle of government policy, ignorance and cold-heartedness.

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