When journals decide not to publish studies because they suspect misconduct, they often fail to alert the researchers' employers or medical authorities, such as the Department of Health and the General Medical Council, he added.

Writing in the latest edition of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr Smith called on editors to blow the whistle on bad research and to use their clout to pressure universities into taking action against dodgy researchers.

"In many ways editors are privileged 'whistleblowers' with the power to publish and expose institutions who fail to investigate alleged research misconduct," he said.

But the former BMJ editor said it was likely that research fraud was "equally common" in the 30,000 plus scientific journals across the globe but was "invariably covered up".

His call for action comes in the wake of several high profile cases of fraudulent research, including the Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk who fabricated stem cell research that it was claimed would open up new ways to treat diseases like Parkinson's.

Dr Smith criticised the failure of scientific institutions, including universities, to discipline dodgy researchers even when alerted to problems by journals.

"Few countries have measures in place to ensure research is carried out ethically," he said.

"Most cases are not publicised. They are simply not recognised, covered up altogether or the guilty researcher is urged to retrain, move to another institution or retire from research."

Dr Smith called for the UK Research Integrity Office, launched last month to develop a code of practice for researchers, to be given stronger powers to investigate allegation of fraudulent or unethical work.

The Committee on Publication Ethics, which advises scientific journals, estimates that there are about 50 cases of seriously fraudulent research in major institutions in Britain a year.

The new quarantine regulations would give airline employees the power to forcibly detain passengers who look sick, the Toronto Star reported.

International health regulations already require the captain of a vessel or plane to report an ill passenger, and the CDC wants that extended to staff.

Dr. Anthony Marfin, a West Nile virus expert with the CDC, said the measures would get passengers through the screening process more quickly.

Civil liberty activists argue that people with no medical background would essentially be diagnosing passengers, the paper said.

Dr. Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, said having untrained airline staff check for symptoms allows for a greater risk of miscommunication.

The CDC is also proposing airline operators be required to collect and store an array of personal information on travellers for 60 days, to be handed over to the CDC in the event of a public health risk.

During the SARS outbreak in 2003, Canadian officials screened passengers at major airports, but no one was ordered into quarantine.

"This would really be a road map," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday. "It will cover both the government and nongovernment actions that are being taken to plan and prepare for any potential pandemic."

A draft of the document, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, provides little new information on government preparations _ but instead offers an acknowledgment that even the most draconian steps would almost certainly fail to keep a flu pandemic from penetrating U.S. borders.

The messy medical reality is that people can spread flu a full day before they show symptoms, meaning even shutting U.S. borders against outbreaks abroad offers no reassurance that a super-strain isn't already incubating here.

The government is preparing for a worst-case scenario of up to 2 million deaths in the United States.

Once a pandemic begins, expect massive disruptions with as much as 40 percent of the work force off the job for a few weeks at a time, even if the government slowed the spread by limiting international flights, quarantining exposed travelers and otherwise restricting movement around the country, the document says.

"Local communities will have to address the medical and nonmedical impacts of the pandemic with available resources," the draft warns, because federal officials won't be able to offer the kind of aid expected after hurricanes or other one-time, one-location natural disasters.

A flu pandemic instead would roll through the country, causing six to eight weeks of active infection per community.

The report aims to energize the private sector, noting that 85 percent of the systems that are vital to society, such as food production, medicine and financial services, are privately run. Those businesses must ensure that power stays on and food is shipped even if 40 percent of their workers are absent because they're ill, caring for sick relatives or other pandemic upheaval.

But the report doesn't actually put anyone in charge of checking whether vital businesses are heeding these warnings.

Few are, suggests a survey that found 66 percent of mid- to large-sized companies have made no preparations, said former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, whose new Deloitte Center for Health Solutions conducted the survey.

Businesses and local governments need specific instructions, he said.

"Everybody is asking, 'Well, we want to do something. How do we do it?'" said Thompson, who heard those questions Tuesday while addressing pandemic preparations at a Michigan law-enforcement conference. "We've got to be much more specific."

The incremental plan was drawing complaints Tuesday that despite months of dire talk about the threat of a pandemic, the Bush administration hasn't accomplished enough.

"Other nations have been implementing their plans for years, but we're reading ours for the first time now. These needless delays have put Americans at risk," complained Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Influenza pandemics strike every few decades when a never-before-seen strain arises. It's impossible to predict when the next will occur, although concern is rising that the Asian bird flu, called the H5N1 strain, might lead to one if it starts spreading easily from person to person.

Uribe made an impassioned plea for help earlier this year on Mexican television, saying he weighed a more normal 130 kg (290 lb) until aged 22 and did not know what happened to him.

The broadcast drew the attention of doctor Giancarlo De Bernardinis, who visited Mexico with a medical team to examine Uribe in March.

Bernardinis, whose biggest patient to date weighed 350 kg (770 lb), told Reuters he plans a gall bladder, intestinal bypass procedure that will allow Uribe to pass food more quickly without so many calories being absorbed.

Bernardinis planned to perform the surgery in Modena as early as this month, although a Mexican health official doubted Uribe would be ready for a trip to Europe that quickly.

MEDICAL MYSTERY

Uribe's case puzzles doctors since his cholesterol and blood-sugar levels are normal, despite his extreme obesity.

"His heart works very well. He has some respiratory difficulty because of his obesity, but in strict terms, he's well," said Marco Anibal Rodriguez Vargas, the director of hospitals in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.

The Ohio Department of Corrections said Joseph Clark, 57, was pronounced dead on Tuesday at 11.26am Ohio time following an injection of lethal chemicals at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville.

A spokeswoman, Andrea Dean, said the execution was delayed about 90 minutes because technicians had trouble initially finding a site in Clark's arm for the intravenous line carrying the chemicals. Then shortly after the poisons were supposed to have been pumping into his body, she said he sat up saying: "It's not working. It's not working."

Officials determined that a vein had collapsed. Curtains were closed to block witnesses' view until technicians found a vein in his other arm. They were then parted to reveal him dying, witnesses said.

Ohio has used lethal injection repeatedly without similar problems, but this method of execution, used in all but one of the 38 US states that impose capital punishment, is under legal attack. The US Supreme Court has a challenge before it from Florida claiming it causes undue pain, while the matter is also before a court in California.

The method involves three separate drugs: the first renders the victim unconscious, the second stops all muscle movement except the heart and the third stops the heart, causing death.

Clark was given a meal of his request, consisting of shrimp, steak, chicken wings, fries, rolls with butter, cherry pie and a soft drink. Just before the execution process started the first time Clark made a final statement apologising to his victims' families and saying: "Today my life is being taken because of drugs. If you live by the sword you die by the sword."

On January 13, 1984 Clark shot David Manning and stole $US65 from the petrol station where the marine reservist and father of two was working.

The murder came during an eight-day crime spree in which Clark also murdered another man, student Donald Harris, and wounded a third man during an attempted robbery.

Harris was filling in for a friend at a convenience store when Clark entered and demanded the contents of the store's safe. Harris said he did not know the combination, and was shot in the head.

Clark was the 21st person to be executed in Ohio since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1999, and the 1021st inmate executed in the US since capital punishment resumed in 1976.