JAMA's policy does not go far enough

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7536.305-a

BMJ 2006;332:305 (4 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7536.305-a

Letter

JAMA's policy does not go far enough

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

EDITOR—The main objection I have to the JAMA policy isnot that it requires independent validation of analysis butthat it seems to require it only for studies sponsored by thepharmaceutical industry.¹ There have been a whole host of examples,ranging from McBride's "studies" of Debendox to the recent caseof stem cell research in South Korea, where "academic" researchersseem to have falsified data. Academics (and I am one) are subjectto many pressures, ranging from desire for fame to need to gettenure to ambition for promotion. These "interests" are extremelyimportant but go largely unrecognised. Hardly any contributorsto medical journals ever declare them.

As a statistician and a sceptic, I am not against distrust,but I am against selective distrust. If distrust is our currencywe need to make it universal and apply it to academics and journaleditors as well. To make . . . [Full text of this article]

Stephen J Senn, professor of statistics

Department of Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ stephen@stats.gla.ac.uk