The palliative care and motor neurone disease article in this issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal by McKenna and MacLeod1 would have gone largely unnoticed by many (including myself) if it wasn’t for the interesting tug-of-war that has been going on around its publication. A letter from a lawyer, Mr McClelland,2 in the letters to the editor section gives a clue as to what has been happening.

The Journal, as with most publications, at times finds itself drawn into a situation in which it must decline or withdraw publication because of legal action. The most public recent experience was in 2001 when the then editor Professor Gary Nicholls withdrew a paragraph in an article and left part of the page blank, except for the comment ‘the paragraph was withdrawn for legal reasons’.

When the Journal receives an article, which (as editor) I am concerned that possible legal action may result from if published, a legal opinion is sought and discussion with the Journal Management Committee is undertaken. Recently such a series of events led to withdrawal of a letter to the editor without publication.

Today we publish a letter, which although does not threaten legal action, clearly is meant to intimidate the editorial staff. The editorial staff from time-to-time receive abuse from irritated authors about rejection of manuscripts, or about some issue related to publication of their article. However this sort of correspondence raises matters to another level.

In this case, an interested party who had not seen the manuscript made an initial compliant of plagiarism. An investigation was then undertaken which showed no evidence of this. Subsequently there was a claim that the questionnaire was developed from their original work, which the authors agreed was true. The authors were happy to acknowledge it, however the complainant did not want to have their name associated with the manuscript in any way. Then the letter arrived from Mr McClelland (a Wellington lawyer) on behalf of his client. A reply was sent, but alas no further correspondence to date.

Several issues raised by this letter to the editor are covered in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscript Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/). These requirements continue to evolve and are updated regularly. There is a very good part on publication ethics, which I draw readers' attention to.

The New Zealand Medical Journal is one of the group members who develop the policy and uniform requirement statements. The most recent notable change related to the registration of clinical trials.3 To others who are uncertain about the sort of issues raised by Mr McClelland, can I suggest that you review the uniform requirements.

Author information: Frank A Frizelle, Editor, New Zealand Medical Journal

Correspondence: Professor Frank A Frizelle, Department of Surgery, Christchurch Hospital, Private Bag 4710, Christchurch. Fax: (03) 364 0352; email: frank.frizelle@cdhb.govt.nz