The May 2005 issue of PLoS Medicine has this essay by the former editor of BMJ, Richard Smith, entitled Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies. A pretty strong title, and this essay makes some strong points about the publication of clinical trials which are in large part sponsored by drug companies („between two-thirds and three-quarters of the trials published in the major journals“). In the end, Smith makes a new suggestion, that „journals should perhaps stop publishing trials. Instead, the protocols and results should be made available on regulated Web sites. Only such a radical step, I think, will stop journals from being beholden to companies. Instead of publishing trials, journals could concentrate on critically describing them.“ Now there’s a thought for the day. [via Librarians‘ Rx] Pharma-Industrie und Top-Journale kriegen es zur Zeit aber drüber und drüber. Lesepflicht!