Co-author submitted new data post-review without my (first author) consent

Question

I am the first author of a manuscript that was recently "accepted in principle". The submission, peer review and revisions of this manuscript happened after I left the laboratory of the corresponding author where I was a postdoc. I was actively involved in the revisions (by email)and guided the graduate student who did the revisions. Following peer review and revisions, the corresponding author wanted to include data (obtained by the graduate student) which I did not approve of. This data was then not included in the revised manuscript or the rebuttal letter. After we received the "accepted in principle" email, the corresponding author again informed me that he wanted to include this data. I objected again. But it appears that he has submitted this data (which was not part of the peer review and has not been seen by the reviewers) without my consent. I would like to write to the editors of the journal asking them to stall the publication of this manuscript since I did not consent to the content and since it includes unreviewed data. Am I correct in doing so?

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Update from the OP:

I have an update on my issue and would appreciate more inputs. I made more attempts to convince the lead author to not include this data, but he did not agree. I finally contacted the journal editor. She sent a rather timid email to the lead author saying very clearly that it was okay to add in data after peer review since manuscripts are not "frozen" after they are accepted in principle. She said she was willing to include this data if it strengthened the manuscript and asked the lead author to contact all co-authors and obtain their consent before the final submission.

The lead author is still refusing to change his decision. He told me that he will easily get all other co-authors to consent to this. In which case, he said that it will appear that I am trying to suppress useful data. I feel bullied here since I cannot match up to his seniority and his relations with the co-authors. He has so far not provided any clear scientific reason for including this data.

Any guesses on what decision the journal will take if both I and the lead author continue to disagree, and I am the only one not giving consent?

Answer 1

Dogmatically speaking, your co-authors clearly acted unethically. You claim to have made clear that you oppose including this data, and they did anyway. Independently of whether it is ok to add more data at the proof stage, all co-authors need to sign off on a paper or changes that are being made, and you did not.

That being said, there is always a pragmatic angle to these arguments. As much as we would like otherwise, miscommunications and differences of opinion happen in collaborations, so there will often be aspects that one or more of the co-authors are not fully on board with (and papers get published anyway). As such, you need to decide for yourself how important this issue is to you:

• Is this issue important enough to you to go into a, potentially lengthy, argument with your co-authors and the journal editor (who may not be thrilled to be sucked into what is effectively an internal quarrel between you and your collaborators)?
• Is this issue important enough to permanently sour the relationship with your co-authors?
• Is this issue important enough to just not have the paper published?

Only you know the answer to this questions, but if the root of the problem really is that your co-authors wish to include data that "does not contribute to the story of the paper" then the answer may easily be "no" if you think about it calmly.