Pediatrics Editors Claim Compliance with – But Instead Violate Publication Ethics Guidelines

In previous blog posts I described how Pediatrics editors refused to retract a fatally flawed study by University of California San Francisco authors (here and here).  I also described how they allowed publication of unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks, then tried to cover them up by scrubbing the journal website (here). 

Carl Phillips afforded the editors a chance to account for their unprofessional actions in an article at The Daily Vaper (here).  They responded by saying that their actions were consistent with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for journals.  This is demonstrably false.  The editors violated three of the guidelines (available here).

The COPE guidelines say that “Editors are accountable and should take responsibility for everything they publish.” 

However, instead of taking responsibility for publishing an ad hominem attack, they simply erased the attack from the Pediatrics website with no retraction or apology (here).  To make matters worse, they also deleted another comment by Bates and colleagues (here), which violated another COPE principle:

“Editors should adopt editorial policies that encourage maximum transparency and complete, honest reporting.”

Carl Phillips described another instance of zero transparency:

“During the dispute over the comments, the editors informed Rodu that they were commissioning an independent ‘expert’ review of the dispute. Clearly there was no genuinely expert review, because that would have concluded that Rodu was right and Chaffee’s comment was nonsense. The editors did not post the review to the comments thread, as they should have, and refused a request by The Daily Vaper to see a copy of it.”

Finally, as Phillips and I have documented in detail, the Pediatrics editors violated a third principle:

“Editors should guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct.”

The original manuscript from Benjamin W. Chaffee, Shannon Lea Watkins, and Stanton A. Glantz was never retracted after it was clearly demonstrated to be deficient, and the Pediatrics editors – Drs. Lewis First (University of Vermont), Alex Kemper (Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus Ohio) and Mark Neuman (Harvard) – are guilty of publication misconduct.

Pediatrics Journal Ignores Its Stated Editorial Standards

The journal Pediatrics in March published an article by University of California San Francisco’s Benjamin Chaffee, Shannon Lea Watkins and Stanton Glantz claiming that e-cigarettes lead to smoking. The claim was baseless; the authors ignored subjects’ past smoking activity, as I explained in an earlier blog post (here).

On March 15, I submitted a comment to the journal with a re-analysis of Chaffee’s data using the omitted variable and demonstrating the invalidity of Chaffee’s claim.  On the basis of this flaw, I requested retraction of the article. 

Our comment was published on the Pediatrics website March 30, along with a response from Chaffee et al. that further validated a retraction (here).  Their response included an attack on my independence, veracity and transparency.  Clive Bates, David Sweanor, David Abrams and Raymond Niaura endorsed our analysis in an April 11 comment, labeling Chaffee’s response “inadequate, disappointing and surprising.”  They pointed out that it was “disappointing because the authors, apparently with the approval of the journal, have resorted to an ad hominem attack on Rodu and without showing any improper conduct or incomplete disclosure.” 

I had responded to the attack by Chaffee et al. with an email to the Pediatrics editors on April 9:

“Chaffee et al. stated that my ‘financial ties to the tobacco industry are much more extensive than the posted disclosures suggest.’ This is false, defamatory and potentially libelous on two accounts, alleging that I made an inadequate disclosure, and that I have more ‘financial ties.’ My disclosure was accurate and complete. In addition, the website they cited contains no supporting evidence for their allegation, because I have no other financial ties or conflicts of interest. The journal has specific policies prohibiting both defamatory/libelous comments and weblinks. These policies also provide guidance for your immediate attention to this matter.” (here)

On or about April 24, Pediatrics published a revised response from Chaffee et al.  Their fictitious claims about “financial ties” had disappeared, but the revised text carried the same date as the authors’ original comment.  The editors failed to indicate a correction had been made, and that erroneous and disparaging remarks had been removed.  The editors had allowed the libelous statements to remain on the journal site for nearly a month; the offending remarks are still available elsewhere on the Internet (here).

The editors violated the journal’s stated policy: “Once a comment has been posted on the website, you will not have the right to have it removed or edited… Be sure to follow all of the consideration criteria below; you will not be able to modify your comment after submission.” (emphasis in original)

Compounding this journalistic failure, the editors encouraged Clive Bates and colleagues to edit their published comment and delete language countering Chaffee et al.’s defamatory remarks.  When Bates did not immediately comply, the editors deleted the entire Bates comment.  However, it is still available here.

Journal editors Drs. Lewis First (University of Vermont), Alex Kemper (Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus Ohio) and Mark Neuman (Harvard) owe Pediatrics readers full compliance with their journal’s editorial standards, including a detailed correction notice and republication of the full text of the Bates et al. comment.

Poison Control Centers' Data Puts E-Cigarette Exposure Risk in Perspective

The journal Pediatrics recently reported that “there were more than 8,200 calls to US poison centers regarding exposures to liquid nicotine and e-cigarettes among children younger than 6 years of age from January 2012 through April 2017, averaging 129 calls each month or more than 4 a day.” (here) As I previously noted (here), annual exposures (which were 1,548 according to the Pediatrics article) should be considered in appropriate perspective. 

While the journal article acknowledged that e-cigarette exposures “decreased by about 20% from 2015 to 2016,” its senior author called for additional regulation.  If children’s exposure to products should guide regulatory priorities, the following chart from the American Association of Poison Control Centers (2016 report available here) may be instructive.

Non-Pharmaceutical Exposures Reported To Poison Control Centers in the U.S., 2016
Product Category	Number Among Children Under 6 Years	Number Among All Ages	Deaths Per 100,000 Exposures*
Cosmetics, personal care products	136,004	180,065	3
Household cleaners	111,445	179,828	13
Foreign bodies	65,864	90,667	1
Pesticides	33,458	77,573	22
Plants	27,565	45,150	24
Arts, crafts, office supplies	20,096	27,319	0
Deodorizers	17,398	21,266	14
Essential oils (clove, etc.)	13,264	18,997	0
Tobacco	11,358	13,319	0
Cigarettes	6,331	6,699	--
E-Cigarettes	2,075	2,827	--
Chewing tobacco	1,220	1,357	--
Other	1,732	2,436	--
Foods, additives, spoilage	10,839	33,909	9
Alcohols	9,562	22,289	117
Chemicals	9,328	33,910	80
Gasoline, other hydrocarbons	8,821	27,807	76
Bites, venom	6,708	46,989	15
Paint, strippers	6,601	12,238	0
Batteries	5,483	9,651	41
Adhesives, glue	4,692	9,622	0
Fumes, vapors	3,673	31,337	214
Fertilizers	2,759	4,590	80
Other	35,859	94,024	44
All	540,777	980,550	26

* All Ages

Of the half million exposures among children under 6 years of age recorded by poison control centers in 2016, 45.8% involved cosmetics, personal care products or household cleaners, while e-cigarettes accounted for just 0.4%. 

Looking at product-related deaths per 100,000 exposures, rates were highest for fumes and vapors (which included carbon monoxide) and for alcohols, but there were no deaths recorded for tobacco exposures, including e-cigarettes.

Public health generally and children’s health in particular may benefit from regulatory reform that is keyed to demonstrated risk exposure.