Piratism of scientific work.

A.S. Awidi, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Consultant Hematologist, Jordan University Hospital, Amman (Jordan) To the Editor, I wish to draw your attention to the paper by E.A. Alsabti and M. Hammadi (Acta haemat. 61: 47–51, 1979). In that paper the authors claim to have studied the pattern and occurrence of inherited bleeding syndromes in Jordan over a period of 1 year. In the abstract the authors claim to have done the work in 1978. Their paper was received on April 18, 1978. In Material and Methods they claim to have started their work on March 11, 1977; so their work should have finished on March 10, 1978. Let me draw your attention to the following facts: In 1977 Alsabti was residing in the USA [1]. In the summer of 1977 he worked for 1 month with Dr. Friedman at Temple, Tex., USA. From November 1977 to April 1978 he worked with Dr. Wheelock at the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa., USA. From September 1978 to February 1979 he was working with Dr. Mavligit at the M.D. Anderson Hospital, Houston, Tex., USA [1]. So under no circumstance he could have done such a work in Jordan because he was not physically residing in the country. The technical facilities and laboratory investigations for such a work were not possible in Jordan until early 1980 and only at the University Hospital. Nobody from the physicians at King Hussein Medical Centre, where the work was supposed to have been done, knows Alsabti or his associate or knows of such a work. (4) Alsabti is known to be an international literature pirate [1, 2]. (5)A11 the information, results, timing, and conclusions presented by Alsabti in his paper are made up or stolen and could not have been based on any real work done by him or his associate in Jordan. At present, there is such a work being done by me at the Jordan University Hospital. The results are not expected before 1983. I hope you will retract AlsabtΓs paper completely. If not, at least you should draw the attention of your readers to my points. Thank you. References Broad, W.J.: Would be academician pirates papers. Science 208: 1438–1440 (1980). Wheelock, E.F.: Plagiarism and freedom of information laws. Lancet i: 826 (1980). Piratism of Scientific Work 143