Some examples of apparent plagiarism and text recycling in the work of Dr Paul McCrory

Dr Paul McCrory of the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health has been in the news in the past few days. This started with a single retraction of an apparently plagiarised editorial piece in the British Journal of Sports Medicine from 2005, but after I started digging further and more problems came to light, he has now resigned as chair of the influential Concussion in Sport Group (CISG), as reported by The Guardian and The Athletic, among other outlets.

Since much of this story has only been covered in a series of separate threads on Twitter up to now, I thought I would take some time to document in one place the full extent of what I have found about Dr McCrory's extensive recycling of his own and others' writing.

The first five exhibits are already in the public domain, but I will include them here for completeness. If you have been following the story on Twitter up to now, you can skip straight to Exhibit 6.

Exhibit 1

McCrory, P. (2005). The time lords. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(11), 785–786.

About 50% of this article has been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from this 2000 article in Physics Today by Steve Haake, who was the person who first discovered Dr McCrory's plagiarism and brought it to the attention of the current editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The copied text is highlighted in pink here:

The editorial has now been retracted. This was reported by Retraction Watch on February 28, 2022. At that point I started looking into other articles by the same author.

Exhibit 2

McCrory, P. (2005). Definitions for the purist. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(11), 786.

About 70% of this article has been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from this website. A copy of that page, archived on May 22, 2003 (that is, two years before Dr McCrory's article was published) can be found here. The copied text is highlighted in yellow here:

I tweeted about this article on March 1, 2022. Retraction Watch picked up on that and later reported that the author had asked for the article to be retracted, giving an explanation that I found less than impressive.

Exhibit 3

McCrory, P. (2006). Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints…? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 40(7), 565. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2006.029231

Nearly 80% of the words in this article have been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from the following sources:

• Yellow: This website. A copy of that page, archived on December 7, 2003 (that is, more than two years before Dr McCrory's article was published) can be found here.
• Pink: This article from New Scientist, dated April 16, 2005.
• Blue: This website, dated March 2006 (several months before Dr McCrory's article was published). An archived copy from May 2, 2006 can be found here.
• Green: This website, dated November 2005.
• Grey: This website. An archived copy from September 6, 2003 can be found here.

As with Exhibit 2, I tweeted about this on March 1, 2022. The author came up with a quite remarkable story for Retraction Watch about why this article only merited a correction. I found that even less impressive than his excuses in the previous case.

Exhibit 4

McCrory, P. (2002). Commotio cordis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 36(4), 236–237.

About 90% of the words in this article have been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from the following sources:

• Yellow: Curfman, G. D. (1998). Fatal impact — Concussion of the heart. New England Journal of Medicine, 338(25), 1841-1843. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199806183382511
• Blue: Nesbitt, A. D., Cooper, P. J., & Kohl, P. (2001). Rediscovering commotio cordis. The Lancet, 357(9263):1195–1197. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(00)04338-5
  .

James Heathers discovered a couple of these overlaps on March 3, 2022 and I tweeted the full picture on March 4, 2022.

Exhibit 5

McCrory, P. (2005). A cause for concern? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(5), 249.

Almost half of the words in this article have been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from the following source:

• Piazza, O., Anna-Leena Sirén, A.-L., & Ehrenreich, H. (2004). Soccer, neurotrauma and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Is there a connection? Current Medical Research and Opinion, 20(4), 505–508. https://doi.org/10.1185/030079904125003296

 The copied text is highlighted in pink here:

I tweeted about this on March 4, 2022.

Exhibit 6

McCrory, P. (2002). Should we treat concussion pharmacologically? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 36(1), 3–5.

Almost 100% of the text has been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from:

• McCrory, P. (2001). New treatments for concussion: The next millennium beckons. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 11(3), 190–193.

That copied text is highlighted blue (light or dark) in the image below. The text in dark blue also overlaps with this MedLink article. Thus, either Dr McCrory plagiarised three paragraphs from MedLink in two separate articles, or MedLink plagiarised him. The MedLink article was initially published in 1997, but it has been updated since, so the direction of copying cannot be established with certainty unless I can find an archived copy from 2001. It may, however, be interesting that the "phase II safety and efficacity trial" mentioned (Dr McCrory's reference 22) has a date of 1997.

James Heathers discovered one of the overlaps in this text on March 3, 2022, but it took another couple of hours work at my end to uncover the full extent of the text recycling and possible plagiarism in this article.

Exhibit 7

McCrory, P. (2006). How should we teach sports medicine? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 40(5), 377.

About 60% of the words in this article have been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from the following sources:

• Pink: Fallon,  K. E., & Trevitt, A. C. (2006). Optimising a curriculum for clinical haematology and biochemistry in sports medicine: A Delphi approach. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 40(2), 139–144. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2005.020602
• Blue: Long, G., & Gibbon, W. W. (2000). Postgraduate medical education: Methodology. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 34(4), 235–245.

Note that the Fallon & Trevitt article was published in the same journal just three months before it was plagiarised.

Exhibit 8

McCrory, P. (2008). Neurologic problems in sport. In M. Schwellnus (Ed.), Olympic textbook of medicine in sport (pp. 412–428). Wiley.

About 25% of the words in this book chapter have been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from other sources. Of that 25%, about two-thirds is recycled from other publications by the same author, and the remainder is plagiarised from other authors, as follows:

• Orange: McCrory, P. (2000). Headaches and exercise. Sports Medicine, 30(3), 221–229. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200030030-00006
• Green: McCrory, P. (2001). Headache in sport. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 35(5), 286–287.
• Blue: McCrory, P. (2005). A cause for concern? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39(5), 249. (See also Exhibit 5.)
• Yellow: Showalter, W., Esekogwu, V., Newton, K. I., & Henderson, S. O. (1997). Vertebral artery dissection. Academic Emergency Medicine, 4(10), 991–995. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1553-2712.1997.tb03666.x
• Pink: This MedLink article, which was initially published in 1996, but has been updated since, so the direction of copying cannot be established with certainty unless I can find an archived copy from 2008. It may, however, be interesting that the citations in the pink text (Kaku & Lowenstein 1990; Brust & Richter 1977) both (a) predate the MedLink article and (b) are not — or no longer — referenced at the equivalent points in the MedLink text. It would seem unlikely that MedLink would (a) plagiarise Dr McCrory's article from 2008 at some point after that date and (b) remove these rather old citations (without replacing them with new ones).

(Don't bother squinting too hard at the page - the annotated PDF is available for you to inspect. See link at the end of this post.)

Exhibit 9

McCrory, P., & Turner, M. (2015). Concussion – Onfield and sideline evaluation. In D. McDonagh & D. Zideman (Eds.), The IOC manual of emergency sports medicine (pp. 93–105). Wiley.

About 50% of the words in this book chapter have been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from other sources, as follows:

• Blue: McCrory, P., le Roux, P. D., Turner, M., Kirkeby, I. R., & Johnston, K. M. (2012). Head injuries. In R. Bahr (Ed.), The IOC manual of sports injuries (pp. 58–94). Wiley.
• Yellow: McCrory, P., le Roux, P. D., Turner, M., Kirkeby, I. R., & Johnston, K. M. (2012). Rehabilitation of acute head and facial injuries. In R. Bahr (Ed.), The IOC manual of sports injuries (pp. 95–100). Wiley.
• Green: Aubry, M., Cantu, R., Dvorak, J., Graf-Baumann, T., Johnston, K., Kelly, J., Lovell, M., McCrory, P., Meeuwisse, W., & Schamasch, P. (2001). Summary and agreement statement of the first International Conference on Concussion in Sport, Vienna 2001. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 36(1), 6–10. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.36.1.6
• Pink: McCrory, P. (2015). Head injuries in sports. In M. N. Doral & J. Karlsson (Eds.), Sports injuries (pp. 2935–2951). Springer.

The pink text also appears in Exhibit 9, which was published in the same year, so it's not clear which is the original and which is the copy. I tweeted about some of the similarities between Exhibits 9 and 10 here, although I hadn't found everything at that point.

The green text in the final paragraph on page 105 appears to have been copied and pasted twice (it appears in two paragraphs on page 104), which might cause the reader to wonder exactly how much care and attention went into this copy-and-paste job.

Readers who are interested in the activities of the CISG might be interested to note that the 2001 Vienna conference (the "green" text reference above) was where the name of this group was first coined.

(Note that five pages, corresponding to the photographic reproduction of the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool and the Pocket Concussion Recognition Tool, have been omitted from this image.)

Exhibit 10

McCrory, P. (2015). Head injuries in sports. In M. N. Doral & J. Karlsson (Eds.), Sports injuries (pp. 2935–2951). Springer.

About 90% of the words in this book chapter have been copied, verbatim and without appropriate attribution, from other sources, as follows:

• Blue (light and dark): McCrory, P. le Roux, P. D., Turner, M., Kirkeby, I. R., & Johnston, K. M. (2012). Head injuries. In R. Bahr (Ed.), The IOC manual of sports injuries (pp. 58–94). Wiley.
• Yellow: McCrory, P. le Roux, P. D., Turner, M., Kirkeby, I. R., & Johnston, K. M. (2012). Rehabilitation of acute head and facial injuries. In R. Bahr (Ed.), The IOC manual of sports injuries (pp. 95–100). Wiley.
• Pink: McCrory, P., & Turner, M. (2015). Concussion – Onfield and sideline evaluation. In D. McDonagh & D. Zideman (Eds.), The IOC manual of emergency sports medicine (pp. 93–105). Wiley.

The pink text also appears in Exhibit 9, which was published in the same year, so it's not clear which is the original and which is the copy.

The text in dark blue has been copied twice from the same source; again, it seems as if this chapter was not assembled with any great amount of care.

(Note that six pages, corresponding to the photographic reproduction of the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool and the Pocket Concussion Recognition Tool, have been omitted from this image.)

Conclusion

The exhibits above present evidence of extensive plagiarism and self-plagiarism in seven editorial pieces in the British Journal of Sports Medicine from 2002 through 2006, and three book chapters from 2008 through 2015. As well as the violations of publication ethics and other elementary academic norms, most of these cases would also seem to raise questions about copyright violations.

This is not an exhaustive collection; I have evidence of these transgressions on a smaller scale in a number of other articles and book chapters from the same author, but a combination of time, weariness (of me as investigator and, presumably, of the reader too), and lack of access to source materials (for example, I was only able to find one extensively recycled book chapter on Google Books, which is not very practical for marking up) has led me to stop at 10 exhibits here.

I have no background or experience in the field of head trauma or sports medicine, and I had never heard of Dr McCrory or the CISG until last week. Hence, I am unable to comment about what all of this might mean for the CISG or its influence on the rules and practices of sport. However, although I try not to editorialise too much in this blog, I must say that, based on what I have found here, Dr McCrory does not strike me as an especially outstanding example of scientific integrity, and it does make me wonder what other aspects of his life as a scientist and influencer of public policy might not stand up to close scrutiny.

Data availability

All of the supporting files for this post can be found here. I imagine that this involves quite a few copyright violations of my own, in that many of the source documents are not open access. I hope that the publishers will forgive me for this, but if I receive a legal request to take down any specific file I will, of course, comply with that.