BMJ  2007;334 (14 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.39182.602303.47

Editor's Choice

Editor's choice

Caveat emptor

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

If you read only one thing in the BMJ this week, it should be the article by Ferreira-González and Busse, with its accompanying editorial (well, that makes two things). Rory Watson's article on whether Europe will achieve a 48 hour week is important (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39167.513148.47), as is the related article on how to make shift work more bearable and less damaging to health (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39154.516667.BE). Doug Kamerow's "Yankee Doodling" (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39175.660637.59) is highly deserving of your time, as is the clinical review on post-traumatic stress disorder (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39162.538553.80) and this week's medical classic—La Belle Dame Sans Merci (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39175.619375.94). But Ferreira-González and Busse's systematic review (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39136.682083.AE) is like a great big "caveat emptor" sign hanging over the portal of the world's most influential clinical trials.

What they've done is to look at how trials use composite end points—for example, combining rates of . . . [Full text of this article]

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