TI: Selective data?

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 43, No. 5, June 2001, Page 262 Letters
By: Martin J. Fishman, MD

I was recently asked by the Therapeutics Initiative to review the final draft of Therapeutics Letter number 39 (January/February, 2001) prior to publication.

I submitted several criticisms, particularly in reference to the authors’ decision to exclude placebo data from the major table comparing risks of various anti-inflammatory drugs. I am not surprised that my comments were not incorporated into the publication, or that I did not receive any explanation for this. My concern is whether they were considered in good faith by the authors.

The publication states that “this Therapeutics Letter was submitted for review to 120 experts and primary care physicians in order to correct any inaccuracies and to ensure that the information is concise and relevant to clinicians.” The published version looks unaltered from the draft I reviewed. I wonder how many other of the reviewers submitted criticisms that were ignored. One might speculate whether the authors use editorial licence in selecting only data that support their goal, without documented accountability beyond lip service to the 120 reviewers.

Although the Therapeutics Letter is not factually wrong, the data are selective, and omission of placebo data gives a misleading message to the reader.

I am left to assume that the Therapeutics Letter is a politically driven publication with predetermined conclusions.

—Martin J. Fishman, MD 
Richmond

Martin J. Fishman, MD. TI: Selective data?. BCMJ, Vol. 43, No. 5, June, 2001, Page(s) 262 - Letters.


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

Leave a Reply