Human and Animal Rights

 

Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. All research reports that are submitted for consideration of publication in Mass Spectrometry Letters must include statement(s) of proof that the appropriate approvals were obtained from the relevant authority or research ethics committee. Any manuscript describing a study that used human subjects must include a statement that affirms the experiments were performed with prior informed consent (written or verbal, as appropriate) from each participant. All personal information must be anonymized prior to publication, unless a record of explicit consent from the involved patient(s) has been provided. Any manuscript describing a study that used animal subjects must include a statement in the Experimental section (or text describing the experimental procedures) that affirms all appropriate measures were taken to minimize pain or discomfort, and details of the animals’ care should be provided.

 

If a study has not been submitted to an ethics committee prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor's discretion.

 

Informed Consent

 

For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.

 

For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to individual participants, written informed consent for the publication of these must be obtained from the participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript. If the participant has died, then consent for publication must be sought from the next of kin of the participant. This documentation must be made available to Editors on request, and will be treated confidentially. In cases where images are entirely unidentifiable and there are no details on individuals reported within the manuscript, consent for publication of images may not be required. The final decision on whether consent to publish is required lies with the Editor.