Publishing Integrity Policy

Biomed Thought (BT) follows the core practices and guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

1. Human and Animal Rights
All research involving human participants or animals must have been conducted in accordance with relevant international and institutional standards.

  • Human Research: Studies involving human subjects must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki. Such studies must have received approval from a suitably qualified research ethics committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB) prior to commencement.

  • Animal Research: Research involving animals must comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and the institutional guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals (e.g., NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals). Approval from an Animal Ethics Committee or IACUC is required.

2. Ethics Approval Statement
Manuscripts must include a clear statement in the Methods section detailing:

  1. The name of the reviewing ethics committee or IRB.

  2. The approval number or reference ID.

  3. The date of approval.

Example: "This study was approved by the [University Name] Institutional Review Board (Approval No. XYZ123) on January 1, 2023."

Studies requiring ethics committee approval include surveys, interviews, clinical trials, and retrospective studies involving human data.

3. Clinical Trial Registration
The Journal supports prospective registration of clinical trials. All clinical trials must be registered in a public trials registry (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov) prior to participant enrollment. The trial registration number should be included in the manuscript.

4. Confidentiality and Privacy
Authors must respect the privacy of patients and research participants. Identifying information (such as names, initials, or hospital numbers) should not be published unless the information is essential and the participant has given written informed consent for publication.

5. Data Integrity and Image Manipulation
Authors are expected to retain raw data related to their manuscript. Figures and images must not be manipulated in a way that leads to misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the data. Inappropriate image manipulation constitutes ethical misconduct.

6. Handling Misconduct
If ethical misconduct is suspected, the Journal will follow COPE guidelines to investigate. This may involve contacting the authors' institutions or funding bodies and may result in a retraction or expression of concern.