Bookmarkers beware: Bookmarks to pages other than the home page may not work after we change our server in April Editor's Choice | This Week in BMJ | Press releases BMJ No 7132 Volume 316 News Saturday 28 February 1998 Polish plagiarism scandal unearthed Investigative committees from two Polish institutions are examining the work of an academic who has been accused of publishing over 30 plagiarised articles. The Medical University of Silesia and the Polytechnic Institute of Czestochowa, both in Poland, are soon to give final verdicts on allegations of plagiarism against Dr Andrzej Jendryczko, who currently works in the environmental engineering department of the polytechnic institute and was formerly a professor of biochemistry at the medical university. Although the investigations have not yet been completed, the Senate of the Medical University of Silesia passed a resolution on 17 December 1997 (subsequently reported in the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita) acknowledging the charges as "fully substantiated" and resolving "to condemn most severely the aforementioned dishonourable behaviour which degrades the honour and dignity of academic researchers and tutors." Dr Jendryczko's plagiarism first came to light in 1994. Jan Fallingborg, one of the authors of a paper on selenium concentrations in patients with ulcerative colitis (Dan Med Bull1989;36:568-70) searched Medline for related articles and found a version almost identical to his own, published in the Polish journal Przeglad Lekarski(1992;49:292-3). In 1995 the Danish Committee on Scientific Misconduct investigated the case and found Dr Jendryczko and his coauthors guilty of scientific dishonesty. The paper had simply been translated into Polish. Dr Jendryczko admitted his guilt, and the rector of the Medical University of Silesia, Professor Wladyslaw Pierzchala, revoked his rights as an independent researcher. The university held an inquiry over 13 months, but Dr Jendryczko was not disciplined because, under a Polish law on higher education, action must be taken within three years of the offence. In January 1997 Dr Jendryczko resigned from his post and joined the Polytechnic Institute of Czestochowa. Subsequently, Dr Marek Wronski, the director of neuro-oncology research at Staten Island University in New York, United States, uncovered further evidence of irregularities in Dr Jendryczko's work while collecting information on plagiarism in research. Dr Wronski came across the Danish committee's verdict against Dr Jendryczko and went on to discover that he had published 125 papers in 13 years. Dr Wronski compared these with related articles and found over 30 instances of extensive plagiarism by Dr Jendryczko. He alerted the Medical University of Silesia, the Polish Committee for Scientific Research, the Polish Chief Medical Board, and the editors of medical journals. As a consequence, investigations into Dr Jendryczko's work were reopened. According to Dr Wronski, Dr Jendryczko has plagiarised articles from several leading journals, including the BMJ, the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Cancer, the Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine. In one case, sections of papers from the BMJ(1989;298:642-4) and the New England Journal of Medicine(1992;327:70-5) were combined to form a separate publication in Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie(1993;115:161-6). Dr Wronski explains: "This case attracted my attention, and I began to investigate [Dr Jendryczko's] long list of publications. Using PublicMedline, nearly 30 articles were discovered where the text was taken nearly verbatim from different medical journals. The majority of his articles were published between 1984 and 1996 in Polish in the national journals, but some were submitted in English to less well known European journals like Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie." Dr Jendryczko is still working for the Polytechnic Institute of Czestochowa, while investigations are being completed. In a letter to Rzeczpospolita Zibigniew Zawadzki Poland and Kamran Abbasi BMJ Home | Current issue | Past issues | Classified ads | Career Focus | Feedback Collections | About this site | About the BMJ | BMA | Medline