Rapid Responses to:
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Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
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![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
Another sham? Another failure?
- Jay Ilangaratne (21 January 2006)
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Jay Ilangaratne, Founder medical-journals.com
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Two issues caught my attention.First,BMJ's invitation to readers to express a choice as to the proposed cover designs, and secondly, the demise of BMJUSA. As for the BMJ's invitation,the question is, would the BMJ really choose its new cover design, based on the majority view of the readers? I am rather pessimistic because evidence suggests that BMJ does not proceed on the majority opinion of its readers.In April 2000, in response to a straw poll, the majority opinion was that the frequency and number of rapid responses posted per person should not be restricted;did the BMJ abide by that view?--no. Similarly, there is uproar about BMJ's decision to charge for its content, depriving it to a large number of people in some poorest parts of the world. Such concerns and protests also seem to have fallen on deaf ears. So can we trust the BMJ's sincerity in relation to this latest invitation to its readers? In short, could this be another sham? BMJUSA is not the first to be unsuccessful in the USA. Some may recall Western Journal of Medicine suffered the same fate after a relatively short spell. If Mr/Dr Delamothe is suggesting[1] that BMJUSA went down because the pharmaceutical companies did not back it with sufficient advertisement revenue,then I am not too surprised.Arguably,the BMJUSA did not meet sufficient circulation levels (and it is not difficult to work out why),thus it would not have been viable for pharmaceutical companies to advertise/sponsor such journal.So no blame should be aportioned on the pharmaceutical industry for the BMJ Group's own failure to produce a quality journal to suit the US market. References [1]Tony Delamothe. Singing the body electronic BMJ 2006; 332: 0-f. Competing interests: None declared |
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