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Comment from PLOS ONE

Posted by PLOS_ONE_Group on 12 Nov 2012 at 14:33 GMT

Following the publication of this article, it has come to our attention that the Academic Editor Dr Meuth co-authored different publications with one of the authors in the article over the previous five years.

In line with the PLOS ONE competing interests policy (http://www.plosone.org/st...), we consider this as a potential conflict of interest. Dr Meuth was invited by PLOS ONE to act as Academic Editor for this manuscript and we acknowledge that the journal should not have approached him to handle this manuscript.

We have therefore asked the Academic Editor R. Frederick Westbrook to carefully evaluate the peer review process of this article. Dr Westbrook has confirmed that he is satisfied that the peer review process and the decision for publication are adequate. We are therefore content that the review process was handled correctly by Dr Meuth.

Competing interests declared: PLOS ONE Staff
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