PubMed Commons – A New Way to Share Information and Research Processes

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From a recent email  by Holly Ann Burt, Outreach and Exhibits Coordinator of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) Greater Midwest Region

NCBI has released PubMed** Commons, currently in pilot phase, which is a new system that enables researchers to share their opinions about scientific publications indexed in the PubMed database. This is intended to be a forum for open and constructive criticism and discussion of scientific issues.

A new NCBI Insights Blog post provides more information and explains how researchers can join in!

For more information, please see:

PubMed Commons Homepage – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedcommons
NCBI Insights Blog post: “PubMed Commons – a new forum for scientific discourse”-http://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2013/10/22/pubmed-commons-a-new-forum-for-scientific-discourse/

Here’s a mock-up

**PubMed  (a US government funded database) is the largest database of biomedical journals in the world. It comprises more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

Related articles

• Enter PubMed Commons (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• PubMed now allows comments on abstracts – but only by a select few (retractionwatch.wordpress.com)
• PubMed now allows comments on abstracts — but only by a select few (thestackscat.wordpress.com)
• New Online: NCBI Launches Pilot Version of PubMed Commons (infodocket.com)
• PubMed Commons: Post Peer Review System from NCBI (hslnews.wordpress.com)
• PubMed Commons: Post publication peer review goes mainstream (michaeleisen.org)
• Research Tools: PubMed Now Offers Relevance Sort Option (infodocket.com)
• Post-Publication Peer Review: PubPeer (hslnews.wordpress.com)
• How the NLM Justifies Linking to PubMed Central Versions Directly from PubMed Search Results Lists (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)

Facts in Scientific Drug Literature May Not Be

From the 29 May 2012 article at ScienceNewsDaily

A growing concern with fraud and misconduct in published drug studies has led researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Pharmacoeconomic Research to investigate the extent and reasons for retractions in the research.

“We were surprised to find the proportion of retractions due to scientific misconduct in the drug literature is higher than in general biomedical literature,” said Simon Pickard, associate professor of pharmacy practice and senior author of a study published in the journalPharmacotherapy.

Nearly three-quarters of the retracted drug studies were attributed to scientific misconduct, he said, “which includes data falsification or fabrication, questionable veracity, unethical author conduct, or plagiarism. While these studies comprise a small percentage of the overall literature, health care professionals may rely on this evidence to make treatment recommendations.”

These studies can affect the treatment of thousands of patients, since scientific publications are often printed months in advance. There is an average lag in time of 39 months between the original publication and a retraction notice, Pickard said.

“Once a health care professional changes treatment options, it’s not easy to reverse,” said Jennifer Samp, a fellow in Pickard’s research group and lead author of the study. “Staying current with new findings in scientific literature is a priority for health care practitioners — especially pharmacists — and it is important for them to know when a study has been retracted, especially those with manipulated data.”…

Related Resource
  Evaluating Health Information (links)

Related articles

• Scientific Lies: Facts in scientific drug literature may not be (talesfromthelou.wordpress.com)
• Ethical and Scientific Issues in Studying the Safety of Approved Drugs (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
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Academics ‘guest authoring’ ghostwritten medical journal articles should be charged with fraud, legal experts argue

From the 3 August 2011 Medical News Today article

ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2011) — Two University of Toronto Faculty of Law professors argue that academics who ‘lend’ their names, and receive substantial credit, as guest authors of medical and scientific articles ghostwritten by industry writers, should be charged with professional and academic misconduct and fraud, even if they contain factually correct information.

In an article published in PLoS Medicine, Professors Simon Stern and Trudo Lemmens argue “Guest authorship is a disturbing violation of academic integrity standards, which form the basis of scientific reliability.” In addition, “The false respectability afforded to claims of safety and effectiveness through the use of academic investigators risks undermining the integrity of biomedical research and patient care.”

In “Legal Remedies for Medical Ghostwriting: Imposing Fraud Liability on Guest Authors of Ghostwritten Articles,” Stern and Lemmens argue that since medical journals, academic institutions, and professional disciplinary bodies have not succeeded in enforcing effective sanctions, a more successful deterrence would be through the imposition of legal liability on the guest authors, “and may give rise to claims that could be pursued in a class action based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).”…

Read the entire news article
Journal Reference:
Simon Stern, Trudo Lemmens. Legal Remedies for Medical Ghostwriting: Imposing Fraud Liability on Guest Authors of Ghostwritten Articles. PLoS Medicine, 2011; 8 (8): e1001070 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001070

Impact of free access to the scientific literature, including empowerment of health care consumers

From the 21 July 2011 blog item at  Science Intelligence and InfoPros, by hbasset

An excellent review in the latest JMLA:

The paper reviews recent studies that evaluate the impact of free access (open access) on the behavior of scientists as authors, readers, and citers in developed and developing nations. (…)

• Researchers report that their access to the scientific literature is generally good and improving (76% of researchers think that it is better now than 5 years ago)
• Publishers (Elsevier and Oxford UP) reveal an increase in the number of journals available at a typical university and an even larger increase in the article downloads
• For authors, the access status of a journal is not an important consideration when deciding where to publish (journal reputation is stronger)
• The high cost of Western scientific journals poses a major barrier to researchers in developing nations
• There is clear evidence that free access increases the number of article downloads, although its impact on article citations is not clear
• Recent studies provide little evidence to support the idea that there is a crisis in access to the scholarly literature
• Author’s resistance to publication fees is a major barrier to greater participation in open access initiatives
• The empowerment of health care consumers through universal access to original research has ben cited as a key benefit of free access to the scientific literature
• overall, the published evidence does not indicate how (or whether) free access to the scientific literature influences consumers’ reading or behavior
• current research reveals no evidence of unmet demand for the primary medical or health sciences literature among the general public
• most research on access to the scientific literature assumes a traditional and hierarchical flow of information from the publisher to the eader, with the library often serving ans an intermediary betwwen the two. Very little has been done to investigate alternative routes of access to the scientific literature

Davis, Philip M. & Walters, William H. The impact of free access to the scientific literature: a review of recent research. J Med Libr Assoc 99(3):208-17 (2011).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21753913

available at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133904/

Related posts

• How to obtain free/low cost medical articles in medical and scientific journals
• “Summaries for Patients” and other plain language summaries help patients and others understand medical studies and guidelines

 

 

 

Related articles

• Challenging the Access Crisis (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
• Peter Suber, Open Access Overview (definition, introduction) (earlham.edu)
• Do we need an alternative to peer-reviewed journals? (arstechnica.com)
• Science Longevity Paper Retracted (news.sciencemag.org)
• How the quality of the scientific literature impacts the evidence (kevinmd.com)
• Should scientific articles be available free online? (slate.com)