Publishing – Getting the Word Out to Doctors

The lifeblood of scientific discovery is information. Unless research findings are published and reach the medical community, they are of little value. However, there are problems with the present method of publishing medical research results. Peer review, a process by which experimenters review each other's work in order to weed out poor research, may not catch important errors. The results from some clinical research trials with negative findings may not be published and that also represents a serous problem. Paxil, a drug that some believe leads to juvenile suicides is used to illustrate this issue. A major Paxil trial with a positive result was published and presented at medical meetings, but a similar trial with a negative result ended up with no publication. The case illustrates that a drug's safety and efficacy problems can be deliberately hidden from the medical profession and the public. There are therefore calls for a clinical trial registry, which would contain the results of all clinical research investigations whether or not published in a journal. In addition, an innovative plan by faculty members of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is used to suggest a radically way to change the current publication system.