Search

Focuses on Nancy McCall and Lisa Mix, archivists at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Efforts to preserve research electronically; Development of a conference site on the World Wide Web; Details on the preservation of scientific papers published by psychobiologist Curt P. Richter.

The article states that the U.S. National Library of Medicine has released a selection of papers written by molecular biologist and science administrator Harold Varmus. He was a former cancer researcher, National Institutes of Health Director, and Nobel laureate. Varmus helped develop the theory that cancer is caused by mutations in a person's own genes. The papers can be found at the web site http://www.profiles.nlm.nih.gov. The Library worked with the University of California, San Francisco to digitize Varmus' papers.

Calls for papers on the medical applications of biotechnology. Acceleration in biotechnology research; Invitation of authors to submit articles dealing with any issue in biotechnology as it relates to medicine; Desire to build awareness in the medical community on advances in the field of biotechnology.

Discusses an ban by the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control last year that journals could publish manuscripts from authors living in countries facing United States trade embargoes, but could not edit such papers. Reason why journals cannot edit foreign manuscripts, in regards to economic value of the manuscripts; Amount of fines that could be levied against journals if they were to edit foreign manuscripts; Efforts by Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers to get the United State's government to soften its stance; Renewed stance of the government on the editing of foreign manuscripts.

Importance: Recent discussion has focused on questions related to the repeal and replacement of portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, issues central to the future of health and health care in the United States transcend the ACA provisions receiving the greatest attention. Initiatives directed to certain strategic and infrastructure priorities are vital to achieve better health at lower cost.Objectives: To review the most salient health challenges and opportunities facing the United States, to identify practical and achievable priorities essential to health progress, and to present policy initiatives critical to the nation's health and fiscal integrity.Evidence Review: Qualitative synthesis of 19 National Academy of Medicine-commissioned white papers, with supplemental review and analysis of publicly available data and published research findings.Findings: The US health system faces major challenges. Health care costs remain high at $3.2 trillion spent annually, of which an estimated 30% is related to waste, inefficiencies, and excessive prices; health disparities are persistent and worsening; and the health and financial burdens of chronic illness and disability are straining families and communities. Concurrently, promising opportunities and knowledge to achieve change exist. Across the 19 discussion papers examined, 8 crosscutting policy directions were identified as vital to the nation's health and fiscal future, including 4 action priorities and 4 essential infrastructure needs. The action priorities-pay for value, empower people, activate communities, and connect care-recurred across the articles as direct and strategic opportunities to advance a more efficient, equitable, and patient- and community-focused health system. The essential infrastructure needs-measure what matters most, modernize skills, accelerate real-world evidence, and advance science-were the most commonly cited foundational elements to ensure progress.Conclusions and Relevance: The action priorities and essential infrastructure needs represent major opportunities to improve health outcomes and increase efficiency and value in the health system. As the new US administration and Congress chart the future of health and health care for the United States, and as health leaders across the country contemplate future directions for their programs and initiatives, their leadership and strategic investment in these priorities will be essential for achieving significant progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Many journals provide peer reviewers with written instructions regarding review criteria, such as the originality of results, but little research has been done to investigate ways to improve or facilitate the peer review task.Objective: To assess the value that peer reviewers place on receipt of supplemental materials (eg, abstracts of related papers and preprints of related unpublished manuscripts).Design: Questionnaire survey sent to all 733 peer reviewers recruited by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute to review 356 manuscripts consecutively sent out for review from February 24, 1997, through January 16, 1998. The inclusion of supplemental materials with manuscript review packages was optional.Main Outcome Measure: The peer reviewers' assessment of the actual or potential usefulness of supplemental materials on the performance of peer review.Results: A total of 481 (66%) of 733 questionnaires were returned. Of the 471 respondents' questionnaires that could be used, 217 (46%) indicated that they received abstracts, and 44 (10%) of 458 respondents indicated that they received preprints. Higher proportions of peer reviewers who received supplemental materials than those who had not received them felt that they were (or would be) useful to them when reviewing the manuscript (63% [95% confidence interval (CI), 57%-69%] vs 45% [95% CI, 38%-52%]; P<.001) and to the peer review process in general (80% [95% CI, 75%-85%] vs 64% [95% CI, 58%-70%]; P<.001).Conclusion: The majority of respondents indicated that supplemental materials helped (or would have helped) them evaluate manuscripts and valued them more highly when they actually received them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an editorial calling for research papers on the causes, consequences and prevention of interpersonal violence as well as the prevention and management of the health effects of violence among survivors of armed conflict, war, mass displacement, torture and other human rights abuses. Call for controlled studies of interventions for the prevention and treatment of intimate partner violence, child abuse, youth violence, effects of terrorism, sexual assault and more.

Context: Investigation of the nature and frequency of statistician involvement in medical research and its relation to the final editorial decision. Methods: Authors of original research articles who submitted to BMJ and Annals of Internal Medicine from May through August 2001 were sent a short questionnaire at the time of manuscript submission. Authors were asked if they received assistance from a person with statistical expertise, the nature of any such contribution, and reasons why, if no statistical input was received. Results: The response rate was 75% (704/943); methodological input was reported for 514 (73%) of these papers. In 435 papers (85%), such input was provided by biostatisticians or epidemiologists and, if deemed significant, was typically associated with authorship. A total of 33 of 122 methodologists (27%) whose main contribution started at the analysis stage received neither acknowledgment nor authorship. Research without methodological assistance was more likely to be rejected without review (71% vs 57%; χ[sup 2] = 10.6; P = .001) and possibly less likely to be accepted for publication (7% vs 11%; χ[sup 2] = 2.37; P = .12). Conclusions: Statistical input to medical research is widely recommended but inconsistently obtained. Individuals providing such expertise are often not involved until the analysis of data and many go unrecognized by either authorship or acknowledgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mentions that the July 2004 issue of "JAMA" will be on HIV/AIDS and coincide with the 15th International AIDS conference in Bangkok. Request for evidence-based reports, especially original research, for this theme issue; Suggested topics; How submissions will be evaluated.

Context The impact of clinical decision support systems (CDSS) on antimicrobial prescribing in ambulatory settings has not previously been evaluated. Objective To measure the added value of CDSS when coupled with a community intervention to reduce inappropriate prescribing of antimicrobial drugs for acute respiratory tract infections. Design, Participants and Setting Cluster randomized trial that included 407 460 inhabitants and 334 primary care clinicians in 12 rural communities in Utah and Idaho (6 with 1 shared characteristic and 6 with another), and a third group of 6 communities that served as nonstudy controls. The preintervention period was January to December 2001 and the postintervention period was January 2002 to September 2003. Acute respiratory tract infection diagnoses were classified into groups based on indication for antimicrobial use. Multilevel regression methods were applied to account for the clustered design. Intervention Six communities received a community intervention alone and 6 communities received community intervention plus CDSS that were targeted toward primary care clinicians. The CDSS comprised decision support tools on paper and a handheld computer to guide diagnosis and management of acute respiratory tract infection. Main Outcome Measure Community-wide antimicrobial usage was assessed using retail pharmacy data. Diagnosis-specific antimicrobial use was compared by chart review. Results Within CDSS communities, 71% of primary care clinicians participated in the use of CDSS. The prescribing rate decreased from 84.1 to 75.3 per 100 person-years in the CDSS arm vs 84.3 to 85.2 in community intervention alone, and remained stable in the other communities (P = .03). A total of 13 081 acute respiratory tract infection visits were abstracted. The relative decrease in antimicrobial prescribing for visits in the antibiotics “never-indicated” category during the post-intervention period was 32% in CDSS communities and 5% in community intervention-alone communities (P = .03). Use of macrolides decreased significantly in CDSS communities but not in community intervention–alone communities. Conclusion CDSS implemented in rural primary care settings reduced overall antimicrobial use and improved appropriateness of antimicrobial selection for acute respiratory tract infections. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00235703. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers who collaborate on clinical research studies from diffuse locations need a convenient, inexpensive, secure way to record and manage data. The Internet, with its World Wide Web, provides a vast network that enables researchers with diverse types of computers and operating systems anywhere in the world to log data through a common interface. Development of a Web site for scientific data collection can be organized into 10 steps, including planning the scientific database, choosing a database management software system, setting up database tables for each collaborator's variables, developing the Web site's screen layout, choosing a middleware software system to tie the database software to the Web site interface, embedding data editing and calculation routines, setting up the database on the central server computer, obtaining a unique Internet address and name for the Web site, applying security measures to the site, and training staff who enter data. Ensuring the security of an Internet database requires limiting the number of people who have access to the server, setting up the server on a stand-alone computer, requiring user-name and password authentication for server and Web site access, installing a firewall computer to prevent break-ins and block bogus information from reaching the server, verifying the identity of the server and client computers with certification from a certificate authority, encrypting information sent between server and client computers to avoid eavesdropping, establishing audit trails to record all accesses into the Web site, and educating Web site users about security techniques. When these measures are carefully undertaken, in our experience, information for scientific studies can be collected and maintained on Internet databases more efficiently and securely than through conventional systems of paper records protected by filing cabinets and locked doors. JAMA. 2000;284:1843-1849. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The professional integrity of scientists is important to society as a whole and particularly to disciplines such as medicine that depend heavily on scientific advances for their progress.Objective: To characterize the professional norms of active scientists and compare them with those of individuals with institutional responsibility for the conduct of research.Design: A mailed survey consisting of 12 scenarios in 4 domains of research ethics. Respondents were asked whether an act was unethical and, if so, the degree to which they considered it unethical and to select responses and punishments for the act.Participants: A total of 924 National Science Foundation research grantees in 1993 or 1994 in molecular or cellular biology and 140 representatives from the researchers' institutions to the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity.Main Outcome Measures: Percentage of respondents considering an act unethical and the mean malfeasance rating on a scale of 1 to 10.Results: A total of 606 research grantees and 91 institutional representatives responded to the survey (response rate of 69% of those who could be contacted). Respondents reported a hierarchy of unethical research behaviors. The mean malfeasance rating was unrelated to the characteristics of the investigator performing the hypothetical act or to its consequences. Fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism received malfeasance ratings higher than 8.6, and virtually all thought they were unethical. Deliberately misleading statements about a paper or failure to give proper attribution received ratings between 7 and 8. Sloppiness, oversights, conflicts of interest, and failure to share were less serious still, receiving malfeasance ratings between 5 and 6. Institutional representatives proposed more and different interventions and punishments than the scientists.Conclusions: Surveyed scientists and institutional representatives had strong and similar norms of professional behavior, but differed in their approaches to an unethical act. INSET: Scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial examines the growth and changes in critical care medicine and calls for research papers that will address some of the challenges including: the translational block between basic science and clinical trials, challenges in conducting clinical trials in critically ill patients, the failure of clinical research to fully frame health issues facing critically ill patients and the inadequate evidence base for many aspects of care.

Presents an editorial on coupling drug and catheter therapy for myocardial infarction. Notes on the limits of reperfusion strategies; Plateau of mortality reductions which seems to have been reached; Studies which suggest that treatment with primary percutaeous coronary intervention (PCI) may be associated with lower rates of death; Facilitated PCI approach which combines drug and catheter therapy; Results on the trials conducted to this point; Information on a paper presented in this issue; Belief that pharmacologic pretreatment has not yet been proven and cannot be recommended routinely.

Presents summaries of research papers published in medical journals. 'Moderating Factors in Return to Work and Job Stability After Traumatic Brain Injury, ' by Jeffrey S. Kreutzer and colleagues; 'Risk Factors for Tuberculosis Infection in Children in Contact With Infectious Tuberculosis Cases in the Gambia, West Africa,' by C. Lienhardt et al; 'Infertility Drugs and the Risk of Breast Cancer: Findings From the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Women's Contraceptive and Reproductive Experiences Study,' by Ronald T. Burkman et al; Other topics including eating disorders, survival among HIV-infected dialysis patients, posttransplantation thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, and physiotherapy in subtropic climate for patients with rheumatoid arthritis and spondylarthropathies.

The aim of medical research is to advance scientific knowledge and hence—directly or indirectly—lead to improvements in the treatment and prevention of disease. Each research project should continue systematically from previous research and feed into future research. Each project should contribute beneficially to a slowly evolving body of research. A study should not mislead; otherwise it could adversely affect clinical practice and future research. In 1994 I observed that research papers commonly contain methodological errors, report results selectively, and draw unjustified conclusions. Here I revisit the topic and suggest how journal editors can help. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are six summaries of medical research published in various journals as of July 23, 2003. Research papers pertaining to internal medicine are "Electrolyte Disorders Following Oral Sodium Phosphate Administration for Bowel Cleansing in Elderly Patients" and "Alendronate Prevents Loss of Bone Density Associated With Discontinuation of Hormone Replacement Therapy: A Randomized Controlled Trial." One of the two papers on neurology is "Parkinson Disease With Old-Age Onset: A Comparative Study With Subjects With Middle-Age Onset." Another paper is titled "Injuries to Children Who Had Preinjury Cognitive Impairment: A 10-Year Retrospective Review."

This section presents abstracts of research papers on medical topics, including "Promoting Safe Use of Isotretinoin by Increasing Contraceptive Knowledge," "Patient Demands and Requests for Cancer Tests and Treatments" and "Efficacy and Optimization of Palivizumab Injection Regimens Against Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection".

The article focuses on the use of digital multimedia in the promotion and transmission of the informed consent process in medical research. Topics discussed include the rule-making issued the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) on how information should be presented, the role of informed consent as a vehicle for disclosure of research information and the studies supporting the effectiveness of digital multimedia. The advantages of digital multimedia over paper media are mentioned.

The author offers his views on the practice by medical and scientific journals of requiring authors of papers to declare any financial conflicts of interest (COI) related to their research. He suggests that COIs should focus not only on financial but also on non-financial associations. The importance of disclosing medical biases to the public is emphasized.

The article presents a call for papers to be published in a special October, 2008 issue devoted to the health of the U.S. Preference will be given to papers describing original research that presents new scientific understanding backed by solid data. Any topic related to the nation's health is eligible, including national health status, the composition of the health care work force, econometric analysis of health care reform, and comparative analyses with health care systems in other countries.

A call for original research papers on biomedical topics for the Seventh International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication to be held in Chicago, Illinois on September 8-10, 2013 is presented.

Reports on the President's Council on Bioethics and its white paper "Alternative Sources of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells," in light of research in South Korea that developed a method for creating embryos with cloning. The U.S. stance on federal funding on stem cell research; Methods the council considered to generate stem cells; The debate over ethical and scientific issues related to embryonic stem cell research; Views of council members, including Janet D. Rowley; The pros and cons of blastomere extraction and other approaches for deriving stem-cell lines.

Presents summaries of research papers published in medical journals. 'The Risk and Natural Course of Age-Related Maculopathy,' by Redmer van Leeuwen and colleagues; 'Effect of Antibiotics on the Oropharyngeal Flora in Patients With Acne,' by Ross M. Levy et al; 'Interventions to Reduce Sexual Risk for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Adolescents, 1985-2000,' by Blair T. Johnson et al; Other topics of patient attitudes, statin treatment in Alzheimer patients, effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on young adult drinking habits, and management of refractory to platelet transfusion.

Editorial. Considers how medical education continues to face a relentless challenge to evolve. Efforts to broaden the primary care curriculum and deepen the integration of science with clinical practice; Calls for research papers, critical reviews and commentaries for the 1998 Medical Education issue of `Journal of the American Medical Association.'

The editorial calls for papers to be submitted for the JAMA medical education theme issue, which will be published on September 6, 2006. Manuscript topics can focus on, but are not limited to, educational research methods, decision making, health care delivery, and quality standards. Previously issues have contained articles with subjects such as Internet-based education, resident work hours, cross-cultural care, and funding for medical education research. JAMA is looking for studies that meet validity and generalization standards. The deadline for manuscripts is March 15, 2006.

Presents a list of books related to medical education and research. "Drugs of Abuse," by Simon Wills; "Onward and Upward: The Career Trajectory and Memories of Leonard F. Peltier, MD, PhD," edited by Janolyn G. L. Vecchio, Frederick W. Reckling, and JoAnn B. Reckling; "Mitochondria and the Heart," by José Marin-García; "Mohs Micrographic Surgery," edited by Stephen N. Snow and George R. Mikhail; "Elder Abuse: Selected Papers From the Prague Wold Congress on Family Violence," edited by Elizabeth Podnieks, Jordan I. Kosberg, and Ariela Lowenstein; "The Health Care Mess: How We Got Into It and What It Will Take to Get Out," by Julius Richmond and Rashi Fein; "Aging Men's Health: A Case-Based Approach," by Robert S. Tan; "Core Topics in Airway Management," edited by Ian Calder; "Capnography: Clinical Aspects," edited by J.S. Goldstein, M.B. Jaffe, and D.A. Paulus; "Handbook of Sexual Dysfunction," edited by Richard Balon and R. Taylor Segraves; Others.

Editorial. Comments on the review process used to select papers presented at the Second International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication held in Chicago, Illinois on September 9-11, 1993. Selection; Revision; Attendance record at the congress; Solicitation of opinions from participants regarding peer review and the integrity of the publication process.

Discusses the abstract of the paper 'A Last Call for Self-Regulation of Biomedical Research,' by Paul J, Freidman et al.