BMJ  2003;327:503 (30 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7413.503

Letter

Passive smoking

Peer review and press release

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—The questions raised about the validity of the data reported by Enstrom and Kabat call into question the adequacy of the peer and editorial review of the paper at the BMJ.¹ Apparently no one with special expertise in research on the health effects of passive smoking was involved in the review of this paper. In an area as complex as this—to which massive reports have been devoted^{2 3}—one or more persons with epidemiological expertise and an extensive knowledge of the literature on this subject should have been involved in the review of this paper. The obligation to find such a reviewer is heightened when one considers the authors' conflicts of interest and the fact that the paper challenges a huge body of evidence in an area of enormous public health importance.

The BMJ's press release for this paper looks as if it was written by the tobacco industry. . . . [Full text of this article]

Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Henry Ford Health System, One Ford Place, 5C, Detroit, MI 48202-3450, USA rdavis1@hfhs.org

Related Article

Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98

James E Enstrom and Geoffrey C Kabat
BMJ 2003 326: 1057. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]