Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Feature

What have we learnt from Vioxx?

BMJ 2007; 334 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39024.487720.68 (Published 18 January 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;334:120

Rapid Response:

Hindsight

Hindsight is beautiful thing is it not?
The article by Krumholz et is all very well written but we should not forget
that medical journals like NEJM and JAMA and Annals of internal
medicine should step forward and take their share of blame for publishing
these papers and I strongly feel that issuing corrective statement is not
enough. As far as I understand, there is a peer review system in place and I
seriously hope the people who review these articles are expert in their
field and able to spot flaws and loopholes in studies which sound dodgy
in their design and analysis of results. There is very little benefit in
issuing corrective statement few years down the road when every thing is
done and dusted and case almost settled.

Medical and research community has to look at itself in this case and
share the blame as much as Merck should do.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

26 January 2007
zahid bashir
SHO
bristol royal infirmary BS2 8ED