BCMJ getting greener

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 50, No. 6, July August 2008, Page 335 News

The bag that the next issue of the BCMJ will be mailed in is biodegradable. The bags are made of the same plastic resin that most polyethylene or polypropylene bags are made of, but is combin­ed with a compound (made by ECM Biofilms, Microtech Re­search) that makes the plastic bio­degrade. 

The plastic has the same strength and durability of other bags, but when disposed of is metabolized into inert biomass by the microorganisms found in landfills. Unlike other plastics that need sunlight to degrade, these plastic bags will degrade in  darkness, in both aerobic and anaerobic environments. 

In addition, the end products of bio­degradation are safe for soil-dwelling organisms (such as earth­worms), plants, and the water supply in general. Go to www.ecmbiofilms.com for details, or www.ecmbiofilms.com/report.pdf for the full ecological assessment.

. BCMJ getting greener. BCMJ, Vol. 50, No. 6, July, August, 2008, Page(s) 335 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

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