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Selected AbstractsPUBLICATION ETHICS AND THE GHOST MANAGEMENT OF MEDICAL PUBLICATIONBIOETHICS, Issue 6 2010SERGIO SISMONDO ABSTRACT It is by now no secret that some scientific articles are ghost authored , that is, written by someone other than the person whose name appears at the top of the article. Ghost authorship, however, is only one sort of ghosting. In this article, we present evidence that pharmaceutical companies engage in the ghost management of the scientific literature, by controlling or shaping several crucial steps in the research, writing, and publication of scientific articles. Ghost management allows the pharmaceutical industry to shape the literature in ways that serve its interests. This article aims to reinforce and expand publication ethics as an important area of concern for bioethics. Since ghost-managed research is primarily undertaken in the interests of marketing, large quantities of medical research violate not just publication norms but also research ethics. Much of this research involves human subjects, and yet is performed not primarily to increase knowledge for broad human benefit, but to disseminate results in the service of profits. Those who sponsor, manage, conduct, and publish such research therefore behave unethically, since they put patients at risk without justification. This leads us to a strong conclusion: if medical journals want to ensure that the research they publish is ethically sound, they should not publish articles that are commercially sponsored. [source] Priority In Medical PublicationTHE LARYNGOSCOPE, Issue 4 2004Jonas T. Johnson MD No abstract is available for this article. [source] An appreciation of Ronnie Mac Keith (1978)DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE & CHILD NEUROLOGY, Issue 2 2008Martin Bax DM It is 100 years since Ronnie Mac Keith's birth and 50 years since he started the Journal Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology (DMCN; initially called The Cerebral Palsy Bulletin), the first number being a reprint of William Little's original article. Scope, then The Spastics Society, had just begun to raise significant sums of money and Ronnie persuaded them not only to put some money into medical research, which they did, funding the research laboratories at Guy's, but also, uniquely, to spend some money on educating and informing doctors. This led to financial backing, happily still continuing, to the publishers of DMCN, now the Mac Keith Press. Initially, it was published under the title Spastics International Medical Publications but this was a clumsy and difficult title because of the unfortunate use of the word 'spastics'and soon after Ronnie's death, who was then senior editor, the Mac Keith Press Board were delighted that his family agreed that the Press would be named after him. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ronnie was collecting a team around him to develop the Journal and the books, and contacted me because he knew I had literary interests. I didn't really want to edit a medical journal but I was interested in paediatrics so in the end I got involved! I worked very closely with Ronnie, both clinically and at the Mac Keith Press, and also with the Medical Education Information Unit of the Spastics Society on the meetings he ran. When he died, I tried to pull together something of Ronnie's nature in this personal memoir below, which supplemented the more formal statements about his life and career which can be found in the relevant number of the Journal.1 One hopes that Ronnie would be pleased with what we have done and I know that he would be hoping that we would continue for another 50 years developing ideas and approaches which were essentially developed by Ronnie Mac Keith. [source] IPL technology: A reviewLASERS IN SURGERY AND MEDICINE, Issue 2 2003Christian Raulin MD Abstract Background and Objectives Intense pulsed light (IPL) systems are high-intensity light sources, which emit polychromatic light. Unlike laser systems, these flashlamps work with noncoherent light in a broad wavelength spectrum of 515,1,200 nm. These properties allow for great variability in selecting individual treatment parameters and adapting to different types of skin types and indications. The purpose of this article was to critically review international medical publications of the many indication in which IPL technology can be used, including our own evaluations and experiences. Study Design/Materials and Methods The range of therapeutic uses for high-intensity flashlamps was reviewed, ranging from benign cavernous hemangiomas, benign venous malformations, essential telangiectasias, leg telangiectasias, poikiloderma of Civatte, and port-wine stains to pigmented lesions, cosmetically undesired hypertrichosis, and facial rhydids. The relative benefits and risks were discussed in detail and compared with other laser systems. Results Because of the wide spectrum of potential combinations of wavelengths, pulse durations, pulse frequency, and fluences, a great deal of experience is required when using IPL technology. Proper patient selection and critical diagnostics serve to keep the adverse effects of the treatment to a minimum. Conclusions The distinctive technical conditions involved combine to make IPL technology an alternative and auxiliary treatment option to existing laser systems and conventional therapies. Lasers Surg. Med. 32:78,87, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The Human Phenotype OntologyCLINICAL GENETICS, Issue 6 2010PN Robinson Robinson PN, Mundlos S. The Human Phenotype Ontology. A standardized, controlled vocabulary allows phenotypic information to be described in an unambiguous fashion in medical publications and databases. The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is being developed in an effort to provide such a vocabulary. The use of an ontology to capture phenotypic information allows the use of computational algorithms that exploit semantic similarity between related phenotypic abnormalities to define phenotypic similarity metrics, which can be used to perform database searches for clinical diagnostics or as a basis for incorporating the human phenome into large-scale computational analysis of gene expression patterns and other cellular phenomena associated with human disease. The HPO is freely available at http://www.human-phenotype-ontology.org. [source] |