THE editors of Britain's top medical journals will declare war today on research cheats who try to con them into publishing their work.

They have formed a Committee on Publication Ethics aimed at unmasking fraudulent research before it gets into print.

The move comes in the wake of last week's decision by the General Medical Council to strike off Dr John Anderton, a distinguished consultant physician at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, for faking data in a clinical trial involving patients in his renal unit.

The editor of the British Medical Journal, Dr Richard Smith, and of the Lancet, Dr Richard Horton, who have joined forces with their colleagues on seven specialist journals, announce the formation of the committee in editorials today.

Dr Smith says: ''We still do not know how many cases of research misconduct there are in Britain, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that cases are isolated and rare.''