This editorial is pretty typical of the biomedical arrogance that has given us the present bureaucratic nightmares of research ethics regulation and the forthcoming censorship regime of Open Access. At least the Concordat's published version displayed some sensitivity to the lack of evidence for a large-scale problem of research integrity in the UK, even within the biomedical sciences, and to the arguments for a proportionate response rather than a new regulatory system, whose costs would be highly likely to exceed its benefits. One size does not fit all and it is time the biomedical world acknowledge this and stopped trying to legislate for the whole world of scientific inquiry.

Competing interests: None declared