Much has already been written in blogs, newspapers and on X about the article “Excess mortality across countries in the Western World since the COVID-19 pandemic: ‘Our World in Data’ estimates from January 2020 to December 2022” that appeared in BMJ Public Health on 3 June. One aspect has been somewhat underexposed, namely that what is supposed to pass for ‘original research’ is for quite a bit rather silly plagiarism.