Questionable Ethics Statement on Three Articles from Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute
A same ethical approval number of SDTHEC2024004013 was found to be shared by three articles [1, 2, 3] from Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, an investigation by the 5GH Team reveals.
Two of those three articles [1-2] are about effect of radiation therapy in human participants, while the third one [3] describes a animal study. As the ethical committee is currently on the the New Year leave, the Team has not received an immediate comment from the hospital regarding whether the ethical approval was granted for a human study or a animal study.
The Team also notes that the ethical approval was obtained after the participant recruitment in the two studies [1-2], suggesting that the ethical approval was not granted to a biobank/database. On the other hand, the date of the participant recruitment ended at different days, implying that distinct cohorts of participants were involved in the studies [1-2]. Therefore, the use of the same ethical approval number across studies [1-2] is questionable.
A colleague, John Loadsman, raised a concern that tortured phrase of "knot hoof tissue disease" was found on articles from Chinese authors, and this led the Team to a further investigation and uncovered the questionable ethical statement on these articles.
Reference
[1] 10.1186/s12885-025-15032-9