Larix Journals makes mandatory for the authors reporting experiments with the involvement of animals and human subjects to adhere to following facets:

• The authors should include a statement in the “Methods” section of the article that they have identified the related institutional and/or licensing committee and have taken approval from the committee for their experiments. Institutional Ethical certificate must be submitted along with the manuscript.
• The authors should declare that they have conducted all experiments in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations of the committee.
• If an author performs experimental studies involving client-owned animals, he/she must present an acceptance document from the client about best practices in animal testing. Field studies and other non-experimental research on animals must observe institutional, national, or international guidelines, and wherever available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee.
• The authors involved in research and experiments involving human subjects must confirm that informed consent was obtained from all participants and/or their legal guardians.

The Editor-In-Chief will evaluate the submitted manuscripts on animal well-being issues and if the research found to be inconsistent with commonly accepted norms of using the animal and human subjects, the manuscript is liable to be rejected. The Editor-In-Chief also reserve the right to contact the approving committee for any further clarification.

Researchers please note that they have a moral obligation towards the animals and human subjects they use for their research goals and they must treat them with compassion and consider their well-being while designing the projects.

Ethical Research

Approval from a properly constituted ethical committee or ethical review board is essential, and authors submitting papers may be asked to provide documentary evidence of this requirement, in addition to a written statement to this effect in the body of the paper.

Informed Consent

One of the most important areas of ethical consideration is the obtaining of informed consent from subjects participating in medical research. This issue, of course, is one in which ethical committees have a vital interest. In many countries the issue of informed consent is laid down in statute, with regulations derived from the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki. Articles submitted to the Larix will be expected to demonstrate a valid and ethical process of informed consent for all participants in research studies.

If the Editors of the Larix consider the content of a submitted article to be ethically unsound, they may seek further advice or recommend investigation or action. This may be in addition to rejection of the article for publication. In the first instance this would involve the authors to respond to editorial concern. In addition the Editors may contact the head of department where the work was undertaken for comments and a possible investigation. In the most extreme cases, where scientific fraud or serious ethical misconduct is suspected the Editors may inform the medical registration body of the article guarantor or senior investigator.

Patient Confidentiality

Publication of any patient information usually requires informed consent – even if identifying features are removed. There are occasional exemptions to this policy, such as instances in which either the patient or next of kin are untraceable or when there is an overriding public health concern making publication of patient information desirable. Authors should note that blacking out of the eyes in patient photographs is, in itself, insufficient as a protection of anonymity and that photographs such as this must be accompanied by a signed statement from the patient giving explicit consent to the publication process.

Duplicate Publication 

Articles are submitted to the Larix journals on the understanding that they are submitted solely to this journal and that they have not in whole or part been submitted to or previously published by another journal. Duplicate publication occurs when two or more papers submitted for publication share the same hypothesis, data and conclusions without cross-reference between the two papers.

Author Misconduct

The Editors appreciate that some minor lapses of ethical standards occur as a result of a genuine misunderstanding of research methods and ethical principles. In these instances an explanatory letter from the Editor will inform the authors of shortcomings in their submission. Authors will have the opportunity to respond to such allegations. These include publication of an editorial giving details of the misconduct, formal retraction of the paper, and a bar on future submissions from the authors for a specified period of time.