The British Journal of Sports Medicine has retracted nine non-research articles, authored by former editor-in-chief Dr Paul McCrory, on charges of plagiarism.
An ‘expression of concern’ will also be placed on 38 others published in BMJ journals, on which he is the only author.
These latest retractions follow the retraction earlier this year of an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, prompted by concerns that the article shared similarities with one written for Physics World.
“The scientific record relies on trust, and BMJ’s trust in McCrory’s work — specifically the articles that he has published as a single author — is broken. We will investigate any new allegations that we receive about McCrory’s work in BMJ journals. We ask other publishers and his institution to do the same,” the journal said in a statement.
McCrory, currently of the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Australia, edited the journal between 2001 and 2008.
During that time, he published at least 164 articles in BMJ journals, most of them in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The decision to retract these articles followed an internal investigation by BMJ’s research integrity team and the current editor in chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, prompted by allegations about publication misconduct made by researcher Dr Nick Brown.
The nine retractions all concern opinion pieces, commentaries, and editorials on which McCrory is the only author.
“In the other retracted article, McCrory inaccurately quotes and misrepresents the position of Dr Augustus Thorndike, as stated in an earlier 1952 publication,” the journal claimed.
The editorial notes that after the plagiarism allegations first surfaced, McCrory resigned his leadership position in the CISG, an international association of clinicians and scientists with an interest in sports-related concussion, and stepped down from his role as a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport.
BMJ has identified 40 research articles published in its journals, on which McCrory was a co-author; 18 of these were published during his tenure as editor in chief of The British Journal of Sports Medicine.