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From 28 February to the end of March 2012, the Italian media reacted fiercely to the Giubilini and Minerva paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics a few days earlier. The first article viewed the proposal as analogous to 'barbaric invasions', but in a first stage of the debate it could be seen as a case of the usual controversy between Catholics and secularists. Then emotive reactions prevailed and a flood of papers expressed strong opposition to 'infanticide'. The authors were even deemed insane; the fact that both are Italian certainly increased interest in the subject as well as surprise at their proposal, which some reckoned to be an insult to their 'national identity'. Even freedom of academic research and discussion was put in question, and defenders of free debate were accused of being supporters of the theory of infanticide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work, the top 20 cited papers published in Tobacco Control between 1998 and 15 September 2011, the top 10 cited papers published after 2008 and the 50 authors whose papers have been most cited in the journal are reported. US authors dominated the most cited papers and the most cited authors, with Australian authors in second place. Papers on youth and secondhand smoke dominated the top 20 papers, although harm reduction and packaging papers appeared in the post 2008 leading cited papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The acceptance of a paper in a top-ranked journal depends on the importance of the study, and should not depend on its country of origin. If the papers' citation rate is a proxy for their importance, and the threshold for acceptance is unrelated to the country of origin, papers from different countries published in the same journal should have a similar number of citations. Conversely, if the threshold is lowered for some countries, their papers will have a lower mean citation rate. Methods The number of citations and the corresponding author's country were obtained for 4724 papers published between 1998 and 2002 in the , the , and . Countries were grouped according to the World Bank classification and geographical location: low–middle income countries; high-income European countries; high-income non-European countries; UK and USA. The probability of papers being poorly cited by country of origin was estimated, using domestic papers (British papers published in British journals and US papers published in US journals) as the reference. Results Compared with domestic papers, the OR of being poorly cited was 0.67 (95% CI 0.55 to 0.81) for papers from high-income European countries, 0.97 (0.76 to 1.24) for papers from high-income non-European countries and 1.93 (1.28 to 2.89) for papers from low–middle income countries. Conclusions Papers from different countries published in the same journal have different citation rates. This may reflect difficulties for researchers from some countries to publish their research in leading medical journals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background Diaries are used in sexual behaviour research to reduce recall bias. Diary collection via mobile phone text messaging (SMS) has not been trialled previously in sexual behaviour research. This randomized controlled trial compared SMS, paper and online diaries on response rate, timeliness, completeness of data and acceptability. The correlation between behaviour reported in all three types of diaries and data collected in a retrospective questionnaire was also determined. Methods Participants were recruited by telephone and randomised into one of three groups. They completed weekly sexual behaviour diaries for 3 months by SMS, online or paper (by post). An online survey was conducted at the end of 3 months to compare retrospective reports to the diaries and assess opinions on the diary collection method. Results 72 participants were enrolled in the study, 24 in each group. Online diaries were more likely to be submitted late than SMS diaries (p<0.001). 3.9% of SMS diaries, 3.1% of paper diaries and 0.5% of online diaries were incomplete (p=0.001). Online data collection was the preferred mode for 51%. 65 participants completed the end point retrospective questionnaire. The correlation between the diary and questionnaire on sexual risk classification was substantial (κ=0.74) regardless of diary mode. Conclusions SMS is a convenient and timely method of collecting brief behavioural data, but online data collection was preferable to most participants and more likely to be complete. Data collected in retrospective sexual behaviour questionnaires were found to agree substantially with data collected through weekly self-reported diaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To determine whether authors of scientific publications in molecular biology declare patents and other potential financial interests. Design: Survey of a 6-month sample of papers related to molecular biology in Nature. Methods: The esp@cenet worldwide patent search engine was used to search for patents applied for by the authors of scientific papers in Nature that were related to molecular biology and genetics, between January and June 2005. Results: Of the 79 papers considered, four had declared that certain authors had competing financial interests. Seven papers in which no financial interests were declared had authors with patent applications that were based on the research in the paper or were closely related to it. Another paper had two authors with connections to biotechnology companies that were not disclosed. Conclusion: Two thirds of the papers in which authors had patent applications or company affiliations that might be considered to be competing financial interests did not disclose them. Failure to disclose such information may have negative implications on the perception of science in society and on its quality if the possible bias is hidden. Journals should make greater efforts to ensure full disclosure, and scientific institutions should consider failure to disclose financial interests as an example of scientific malpractice. Establishing a register of interests for scientists is one way to increase transparency and openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses most cited authors and papers in tobacco control. Citations are the most common way of measuring the impact in the scientific community of an article, and cumulatively, of a researcher. However, there can be important differences between evaluating impact and the quality of a paper. The field of tobacco control is very broad and includes basic science on toxicology, pharmacology, and genetics; clinical research reporting on the impact of tobacco use on individuals' health; epidemiological research on large populations; studies of tobacco use; and matters relevant to policies and programmes designed to reduce tobacco use and the harm it causes.

Aim: To compare the burning characteristics of the tobacco and paper of manufactured and hand rolled cigarettes, and set a fire safety standard of manufacture to largely reduce the fire risk from discarded cigarettes. Methods: (1) Cigarette extinction test of ignition strength: 40 cigarettes per brand, lit and placed on 15 layers of filter paper, in accordance with ASTM test standard E21 87-02. (2) Citrate extracted by 0.1 N hydrochloric acid from cigarette papers and from tobacco in manufactured cigarettes, the supernatant analysed by high performance liquid chromatography using ultraviolet visual light spectrophotometer. (3) Survey of 750 nationally representative adults age 18 years and over, by telephone, including 184 smokers. Materials: (a) New Zealand made Holiday, and Horizon, and US made Marlboro manufactured cigarettes; (b) US manufactured Merit with banded paper; (c) Holiday, Horizon and Marlboro hand rolling tobaccos, hand rolled in Rizla cigarette papers; (d) manufactured cigarettes as in (a), reconstructed using Rizla hand rolling cigarette papers. Results: 1. (a) For each brand of manufactured cigarettes, 40/40 burnt full length; (b) for Merit banded paper cigarettes 29/40 (73%) burnt full length; (c) for each brand of hand rolled cigarettes 0/40 burnt full length; (d) 0/40 manufactured cigarettes reconstructed with Rizla hand rolling paper burnt full length. 2. Citrate content (a) In manufactured cigarette papers: 0.3-0.8 mg; in tobacco of manufactured cigarettes: Holiday 0, Horizon 0, Marlboro 8.8 mg; (b) Merit: in banded paper 0.418 mg; in tobacco 10.23 mg; (c) In hand rolled cigarettes: in the papers <0.08 mg; in hand rolled tobacco 13.3-15.0 mg; (d) In hand rolling papers of reconstructed cigarettes: <0.018 mg. 3. Requiring manufactured cigarettes to compulsorily self-extinguish when left unattended was supported by 67% of smokers, 61% of manufactured cigarette smokers, 82% of hand rolled smokers, and by 68% of non-smokers. Conclusion: The wrapping paper is a key determinant of whether or not unpuffed cigarettes burn their full length. Using international test methods, popular brands of manufactured cigarettes all burnt full length, but none did so when re-wrapped in hand rolling cigarette paper. This provides a ready-to-hand smoker acceptable standard for reducing ignition potential from manufactured cigarettes, as a basis for regulation or litigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has published clear guidance on the authorship of scientific papers, short-term contract research workers, who perform much of the research that is reported in the biomedical literature, are often at a disadvantage in terms of recognition, reward and career progression. This article identifies several professional, ethical and operational issues associated with the assignment of authorship, describes how a university department of primary care set about identifying and responding to the concerns of its contract research staff on authorship and describes a set of guidelines that were produced to deal with the ethical and professional issues raised. These guidelines include directions on how authorship should be negotiated and allocated and how short-term researchers can begin to develop as authors. They also deal with the structures required to support an equitable system, which deals with the needs of short-term researchers in ways that are realistic in the increasingly competitive world of research funding and publication, and may offer a model for more formal guidelines that could form part of institutional research policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To provide a participant's account of the development of a paper commissioned by the tobacco industry examining the reliability of self reported smoking status; to redress the distorted report of this Japanese spousal smoking study which evaluated the reliability and validity of self reported smoking status, and estimated confounding by diet and lifestyle factors. Design: Repeated interviews on smoking status and its verification by environmental and biological markers for environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure. Setting: Urban wives in Osaka City and Sizuoka City, Japan. Participants: Semi-random sampling of 200 wives in each city. From the Osaka subjects, 100 non-smoking wives were selected for the validity study. Main outcome measures: Kappa coefficient for reliability of self reported smoking status. Correlation coefficients between environmental nicotine concentration, cotinine in saliva and urine, and self reported smoking status. Results: The K coefficient for the repeated interview was high suggesting sufficient reliability of the response. The proportion of self reported current smokers misclassified as non-smokers was equivalent to the misclassified self reported non-smokers. Ambient concentration of nicotine and personal exposure to nicotine correlated with each other and also with salivary cotinine and self reported ETS exposure but not with urinary cotinine/creatinine ratio (CCR). There was no major difference in diet and lifestyle related to husband's smoking status. Conclusion: Self reported smoking status by Japanese wives shows high reliability. It also shows high validity when verified by both nicotine exposure and salivary cotinine, but not by CCR. A previous report questioning the credibility of self reported smoking status, based on questionable CCR, could thus be of dubious validity. In addition, possible dietary and lifestyle confounding factors associated with smoking husbands were not demonstrable, a finding not reported previously. Using all the data from this project changes the conclusion of the previous published report. In addition to the distortion of scientific findings by a tobacco industry affiliated researcher, anti-smoking campaigners made attempts to intimidate and suppress scientific activities. These distortions of science should be counteracted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proportional odds models are commonly used to model ordinal responses, but the proportional odds assumption may not hold in practice, leading to biased inference. Tests such as score, Wald and likelihood ratio (LR) have been proposed to evaluate the proportional odds assumption based on models without the assumption. Brant has proposed an independent binary model-based Wald-type test, and Wolfe and Gould have extended the idea to propose an LR-type test. This paper provides a brief review of the Brant and Wolfe-Gould tests for evaluating the proportional odds assumption and evaluates their performance through simulation studies and a real data example. Sample programs are provided in SAS, SPSS and Stata to facilitate the implementation of these tests using standard statistical software packages. This study highlights the importance of evaluating the proportional odds assumption when using proportional odds models for ordinal responses. The sample programs provided in this paper make it easy for researchers to apply these tests in their own analyses using standard statistical software packages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the pioneering work of Roger Ekins in describing the methodology for radioimmunoassay of hormone concentrations in plasma a series of publications followed describing variation in plasma hormone concentrations in a number of diseases. Though fluctuations in hormonal concentrations had been suspected, it was not until Hunter and Rigal documented these for the OH axis that it became apparent that the preferred mode of signalling for many hormone systems and in particular the anterior-pituitary hormones was of a pulsatile nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports the effectiveness of the statistical assessment scheme for papers submitted to the 'British Medical Journal,'. Statistical criticism of the content; Comparison of reports on published and unpublished papers; Acceptability of assessed papers.

During a series of presentations of scientific papers 40.6% of 276 subjects reported dreaming, but only 18.1% actually fell asleep. The frequency of dreaming was significantly increased by the addition of either "very boring" or "very interesting" slides to the usual ones, but not by "neutral" slides. The recall of lecture content and the proportion of audience asleep were (surprisingly) not greatly affected by the addition of extraneous slides of any sort. On the other hand, adding "very interesting" slides greatly increases audience enjoyment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although logistic regression is the most popular for modelling regression relationships with binary responses, many find relative risk (RR), or risk ratio, easier to interpret and prefer to use this measure of risk in regression analysis. Indeed, since Zou published his modified Poisson regression approach for modelling RR for cross-sectional data, his paper has been cited over 7 000 times, demonstrating the popularity of this alternative measure of risk in regression analysis involving binary responses. As longitudinal studies have become increasingly popular in clinical trials and observational studies, it is imperative to extend Zou's approach for longitudinal data. The two most popular approaches for longitudinal data analysis are the generalised linear mixed-effects model (GLMM) and generalised estimating equations (GEE). However, the parametric GLMM cannot be used for the extension within the current context, because Zou's approach treats the binary response as a Poisson variable, which is at odds with the Bernoulli distribution for the binary response. On the other hand, as it imposes no mathematical model on data distributions, the semiparametric GEE is coherent with Zou's modified Poisson regression. In this paper, we develop a GEE-based longitudinal model for binary responses to provide inference about RR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the means of compensating participants for injuries from medical research in Great Britain. Establishment of funds for compensation; Rights of participants to redress negligence of investigators; Product liability of drug manufacturers.

Presents tips for writing a clinically-oriented article of a medical journal. Problems in the presentation and contents of the study; Emphasis on clinical relevance; Validation of the conclusion.

Focuses on the final session of the Chichester Conference of the National Health Service organization in Great Britain. Discussion on the status of natural units of health organization; Sense of professional identification among the members; Delegation to divisions and working units.

Incentivised by breakthroughs and data generated by the high-throughput sequencing technology, this paper proposes a distance-based framework to fulfil the emerging needs in elucidating insights from the high-dimensional microbiome data in psychiatric studies. By shifting focus from traditional methods that focus on the observations from each subject to the between-subject attributes that aggregate two or more subjects' entire feature vectors, the described approach revolutionises the conventional prescription for high-dimensional observations via microbiome diversity. To this end, we enrich the classical generalised linear models to articulate the multivariable regression relationship between distance-based variables. We also discuss a robust and computationally feasible semiparametric inference technique. Benefitting from the latest advances in the semiparametric efficiency theory for such attributes, the proposed estimators enjoy robustness and good asymptotic properties that guarantee sensitivity in detecting signals between clinical outcomes and microbiome diversity. It offers a readily implementable and easily interpretable solution for deciphering the gut-brain axis in mental health research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents tips of writing a medical paper in Great Britain. Identification of writing the concluding part as a helpful step for an easy paper formulation; Disadvantages of concentrating on the introductory part of the paper; Significance of formulating an interesting title.

In this White Paper, we discuss the current state of microbial cancer therapy. This paper resulted from a meeting ('Microbial Based Cancer Therapy') at the US National Cancer Institute in the summer of 2017. Here, we define 'Microbial Therapy' to include both oncolytic viral therapy and bacterial anticancer therapy. Both of these fields exploit tumor-specific infectious microbes to treat cancer, have similar mechanisms of action, and are facing similar challenges to commercialization. We designed this paper to nucleate this growing field of microbial therapeutics and increase interactions between researchers in it and related fields. The authors of this paper include many primary researchers in this field. In this paper, we discuss the potential, status and opportunities for microbial therapy as well as strategies attempted to date and important questions that need to be addressed. The main areas that we think will have the greatest impact are immune stimulation, control of efficacy, control of delivery, and safety. There is much excitement about the potential of this field to treat currently intractable cancer. Much of the potential exists because these therapies utilize unique mechanisms of action, difficult to achieve with other biological or small molecule drugs. By better understanding and controlling these mechanisms, we will create new therapies that will become integral components of cancer care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the problem in multiauthorship of works. Factors attributing to the problem in indexing published papers; Contribution of each of the authors in a certain article; Difference in assessments made in the value of the first and last author.

Background The acceptance of a paper in a top-ranked journal depends on the importance of the study, and should not depend on its country of origin. If the papers' citation rate is a proxy for their importance, and the threshold for acceptance is unrelated to the country of origin, papers from different countries published in the same journal should have a similar number of citations. Conversely, if the threshold is lowered for some countries, their papers will have a lower mean citation rate. Methods The number of citations and the corresponding author's country were obtained for 4724 papers published between 1998 and 2002 in the , the , and . Countries were grouped according to the World Bank classification and geographical location: low–middle income countries; high-income European countries; high-income non-European countries; UK and USA. The probability of papers being poorly cited by country of origin was estimated, using domestic papers (British papers published in British journals and US papers published in US journals) as the reference. Results Compared with domestic papers, the OR of being poorly cited was 0.67 (95% CI 0.55 to 0.81) for papers from high-income European countries, 0.97 (0.76 to 1.24) for papers from high-income non-European countries and 1.93 (1.28 to 2.89) for papers from low–middle income countries. Conclusions Papers from different countries published in the same journal have different citation rates. This may reflect difficulties for researchers from some countries to publish their research in leading medical journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the effect of governmental control on drug safety and the process of drug regulation in the United States. Role of Food and Drug Administrations on the introduction of drugs; Background of drug regulation; Impact of the legislation on the drug industries.

Focuses on the interactions between speakers, audience and chairman in a medical meeting in Athens, Greece. Failure of most chairmen to comply with simple medical procedures; Effect of the performance of speakers and chairmen on the interest of the audience; Need for organizing committees to provide instructions to speakers ans chairmen.

Focuses on ways of selecting medical literature to be published in the British Medical Journal. Reasons for writing medical journals; Role of editorial committees in selecting articles to be published; Criteria in the selection.

Nicotine use is more prevalent in patients with psychiatric disorders, especially those diagnosed with psychotic illnesses. Previously, this higher prevalence has been partially attributed to the potential ameliorative effects of nicotine on symptom severity and cognitive impairment. Some healthcare professionals and patients perceive there is a beneficial effect of nicotine on mental health. Emerging data show that the harm associated with nicotine in the population of patients with mental health conditions outweighs any potential benefit. This paper will review the evidence surrounding the nicotinic system and schizophrenia, with a focus on any causality between nicotine and psychosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a response to a comment that followed responses from the past topics. It questions whether a paper with inaccurate interpretations with basis on measurements that are invalid be released. The author offered explanations to answer a clear misunderstanding on the validity and dependability of cotinine and creatinine measurement ratio.

The author comments on the study exploring the association between tobacco consumption and lung cancer which was published in Nazi Germany in 1943. He outlines the findings of the study which revealed that lung cancer patients were more likely to be moderate, heavy or very heavy smokers. He compares the 1943 study to another study by Mueller published in 1939.

Following the pioneering work of Roger Ekins in describing the methodology for radioimmunoassay of hormone concentrations in plasma a series of publications followed describing variation in plasma hormone concentrations in a number of diseases. Though fluctuations in hormonal concentrations had been suspected, it was not until Hunter and Rigal documented these for the GH axis that it became apparent that the preferred mode of signalling for many hormone systems and in particular the anterior-pituitary hormones was of a pulsatile nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on a paper by Alberto Giubilini and colleague on abortion and infanticide. The author states that Giubilini and his colleague are correct when they point to the distinction between exercises in logical thinking and public policy. The author also states that many responses to the paper were mere outpourings of outrage to the authors as well as the editor of the "Journal of MedicalEthics."

The article presents a study which aims to compare the prevalence and attributes if roll-your-own (ROY) cigarettes and factory made (FM) cigarettes usage among smokers in four countries including the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia. The study uses data collected from the international Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey (ITC-4). It says that the patterns of ROY usage vary considerably across the four countries, while the factors associated to ROY use appear to be the same.

The article offers a short review relating to chronic cough in children. The section discusses the effects of a seminal paper by Sheila Mackenzie from the early 1990s on the author's approach to the diagnosis and management of chronic cough in children. The author states that Mackenzie's review was not that cough variant asthma does not exist, because the axiom remains that it is unwise to use never in medicine and that the author have a very small number of patients who fits the label.

The article presents information on the success in tackling deafness with multi-faceted interventions. The interface between ethnicity, health, and health care delivery is complex, and studying this area is known to throw up somewhat paradoxical findings. It is now well known among health professionals that consanguineous kinship patterns increase the risk of recessively inherited disorders such as congenital deafness. There is also a need for health professionals to develop a far more sophisticated appreciation of why consanguinity exists as a social phenomenon, recognizing that it offers several important advantages that cannot be dismissed lightly.

The article presents information on Pyridoxine dependency, which is a rare but well described recessive condition, whose biochemical and genetic cause is unknown. It classically presents with a neonatal epileptic encephalopathy but can present with seizures later in childhood as well. Pyridoxine from any source is usually rapidly phosphorylated to the active form, as shown by the end of the needle response in cases of pyridoxine dependency. However, two cases have been described where this process was defective. These children presented with a severe neonatal epileptic encephalo pa thy that only responded to pyridoxal phosphate.

Focuses on the applicability of personally arranged learning sessions for the presentation of free papers in Great Britain. Background of the method; Steps involved in the preparation of the of free papers; Advantages of the methodology to satisfy audience passivity.

Focuses on the varieties of essay papers in medical examinations. Attempt on conveying thoughts of students to examiners; Example of questions requiring brief answers; Tips on effective essay writing.

Evaluates the method of measuring glucose in capillary blood spotted on to filter paper. Percentage of between-batch reproducibility; Importance of close control of diabetes; Concentration of circulating glycosylated haemoglobin.

Presents a discussion paper on a contract for medical assistants in Great Britain. Minimization of the necessity for accountability; Details on the maximum possible working week; Distinction between whole-time and part-time practitioners.

The article focuses on a spoof medical paper submitted to open access journals which led to an emerging Wild West in academic publishing.

The rapid development of immuno-oncology (I-O) therapies for multiple types of cancer has transformed the cancer treatment landscape and brightened the long-term outlook for many patients with advanced cancer. Responding to ongoing efforts to generate value assessments for novel therapies, multiple stakeholders have been considering the question of "What makes I-O transformative?" Evaluating the distinct features and attributes of these therapies, and better characterizing how patients experience them, will inform such assessments. This paper defines ways in which treatment with I-O is different from other therapies. It also proposes key aspects and attributes of I-O therapies that should be considered in any assessment of their value and seeks to address evidence gaps in existing value frameworks given the unique properties of patient outcomes with I-O therapy. The paper concludes with a "data needs catalogue" (DNC) predicated on the belief that multiple key, unique elements that are necessary to fully characterize the value of I-O therapies are not routinely or robustly measured in current clinical practice or reimbursement databases and are infrequently captured in existing research studies. A better characterization of the benefit of I-O treatment will allow a more thorough assessment of its benefits and provide a template for the design and prioritization of future clinical trials and a roadmap for healthcare insurers to optimize coverage for patients with cancers eligible for I-O therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluates on the performance of speakers during medical meetings using speaker index. Development of instructional device use for communication skills; Facilitation of doctors presentation ; Accuracy of aide-memoire presentation.

Focuses on the clinical responsibility of doctors in Great Britain. Position of the patient to clinical responsibility; Effects of growing professional and industrial conflict to the role of doctors; Suggestions for the development of interrelationships between physicians.

Reports developments on medicine in Europe as of January 1988. Negotiation between the General Medical Services Committee and the Department of Health on primary health care; Access of the district health authorities to family practitioner committees; Derivation of circular of community nursing services and community health care teams.

Details the anemic condition common among runners. Reflection on changes in the circulating red cell mass and in plasma volume; Reduction in serum ferritin concentration; Association of excessive fecal blood loss with marathon training.

Focuses on the dynamics of medical manpower in Great Britain. Increase in the medical unemployment rate; Recommendations on medical student intake and employment of overseas qualified physicians; Strategies in controlling the entry of overseas doctors.