Editorial
Gaetano Santulli
Abstract
This article describes the position of the Journal on the major ethical principles of academic publishing. Academic publishing depends, to a great extent, on trust. Editors trust peer reviewers to provide fair assessments, authors trust Editors to select appropriate peer reviewers, and readers put their trust in the peer-review process [1,2]. Publication of ethically uncertain research occurs albeit well-published guidelines set forth in documents such as the Declaration of Helsinki (http:// whqlibdoc.who.int/euro/1994-97/EUR_ICP_CEH_212.pdf). Such guidelines exist to aide editorial staff in making decisions regarding ethical acceptability of manuscripts submitted for publication, yet examples of ethically suspect and uncertain publication exist [3,4]. The editor of any medical Journal has to be aware of the ethical and legal framework within which medical research is conducted [5]. With an Open Access Journal, we are committed to the widest possible dissemination of Research outputs observing the highest ethical publication practices [6,7,8].\r\n