To the editor:

I am writing concerning the Feature that you 'authored' in the September issue.

I wish to point out that Irina Ermakova had no opportunity to respond to the criticism of your panel of 'researchers working in the field'. The lack of an opportunity to face those hostile comments lacks any sense of fundamental justice. Next, your researchers working in the field had not published animal feeding studies and their fields, like yours, were primarily public relations on behalf of the biotech industry. Furthermore, you have no 'neutral point of view' and should have sought a neutral person to put together an article. And, finally, you should have agreed with Ermakova as to the takeover and change of authorship of the article authored by her, as agreed in a publication proof!

Plagiarism (from the Latin, plagiarus meaning 'a plunderer', or an older term plagium, meaning 'kidnapping', or possibly plagiare, which is 'to wound') is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism). On the basis of this definition, you seem to have plagiarized Ermakova's article by incorporating it into your article without first obtaining permission from Ermakova. You may be surprised to know that editors have no right to scoop up others' articles and incorporate them into their own or others' articles, without first obtaining agreement from the authors. If Nature Biotechnology is planning to promote plagiarism by editors as a general practice, you should inform the scientific public that you have moved in that direction.

The world requires that you should provide Ermakova a publication platform to reply to the critics of her work. Furthermore, I urge you to take time off, go back to the microbiology laboratory and reeducate yourself in the practice of full and truthful scientific reporting.