Prestigious Sports Medicine Journal Retracts Articles Authored by Former Editor-in-Chief

TUESDAY, Oct. 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A leading medical journal, the British Journal of Sports Medicine, has retracted nine more articles written by its former editor-in-chief and applied "expressions of concern" on 38 additional articles on which he is the sole author and that were published in BMJ journals.

This is the latest development in the investigation, which concerns possible plagiarism and misrepresentation of information in articles that were written solely by Paul McCrory, M.B.B.S., Ph.D.

The journal retracted nine more nonresearch articles in addition to the retraction earlier this year of an editorial he wrote. In that editorial, there were concerns it shared similarities with a piece published in the journal Physics World. The researcher on that piece made the first allegations about publication misconduct.

These latest articles were all opinion pieces, commentaries, and editorials. Five involved cases of plagiarism, three of redundant publication, and one in which the BMJ said McCrory misrepresented the position of Augustus Thorndike, M.D., in a 1952 publication on managing sports participation after a concussion. McCrory used this misrepresentation to support his stance in the article, the BMJ said. BMJ also placed expressions of concern on 38 other pieces authored solely by McCrory after an internal investigation, according to a journal news release.

The journal published an editorial online Oct. 10 that describes the investigation and highlights McCrory's most influential work, which were international consensus guidelines on concussion from 2001, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016. They were all published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

McCrory edited the British Journal of Sports Medicine between 2001 and 2008. He is now at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia. He resigned his leadership position in the Concussion in Sport Group after the allegations were made. He also left his role as member of the Scientific Committee of the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport.

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