Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

D Rennie

Publications and source records attributed to D Rennie.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1994

The scientific community's response to evidence of fraudulent publication. The Robert Slutsky case.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether scientists can detect fraudulent results in published research articles and to identify corrective measures that are most effective in purging fraudulent results from the literature. DESIGN: Retrospective case-control study comparing articles by an author known to have published fraudulent articles, Robert A. Slutsky, MD, to a set of control articles. The number of non-self-citations received by each article during each calendar year (1979 through 1990) was counted. The citation numbers were transformed into scores. Each Slutsky article was assigned a score between 1 and 3 based on the number of citations received by the Slutsky article and each of its assigned control articles. Average citation numbers and scores were tracked for each year during the 11-year study period. RESULTS: Before Slutsky's work was publicly questioned (1975 to 1985), scientists cited his articles as frequently as they cited control articles. After Slutsky's work was questioned and reports were published in the news media (1985), scientists cited his article less frequently than they cited control articles. Citations decreased further after the University of California-San Diego published a review of the validity of Slutsky's work in 1987. Citations did not decrease after the appearance of retractions in print or in MEDLINE. CONCLUSION: Scientists do not, and probably cannot, identify published articles that are fraudulent. However, when alerted to the presence of fraudulent results in the literature, the scientific community responds by reducing the number of citations of the tainted articles. In the Slutsky case, general news articles and the three reviews published by the University of California-San Diego were most effective and retractions were least effective in purging fraudulent results from the literature.

Biomedical Research↗
PubMed1994

Sponsored symposia on environmental tobacco smoke.

OBJECTIVE--To test the hypothesis that symposia on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) are more likely to present unbalanced data and be authored by tobacco industry-affiliated individuals than journal articles on ETS. To compare the publication records and affiliations of authors of symposia with the authors of scientific consensus documents on ETS. DESIGN--Content analysis of articles; computerized literature searches of English-language publications (except for one symposium) supplemented with additional sources. PARTICIPANTS (ARTICLES)--All 297 symposium articles on ETS and a random sample of 100 journal articles on ETS published between January 1, 1965, and March 31, 1993; the 1986 Surgeon General's report on ETS; and the 1986 National Research Council's report on ETS. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--For each article, regardless of whether it had a methods section, agreement with the tobacco industry position that ETS is not harmful; topic; funding source(s); affiliation(s) of author; and publication records of authors. RESULTS--Of the symposium articles 41% were reviews, compared with 10% of journal articles. A total of 83% of original symposium articles and 100% of journal articles contained methods sections (P = .0001). Symposium articles were more likely to agree with the tobacco industry position (46% vs 20%), less likely to assess the health effects of ETS (22% vs 49%), less likely to disclose their source of funding (22% vs 60%), and more likely to be written by tobacco industry-affiliated authors (35% vs 6%) than journal articles (P = .0001). Symposium authors published a lower proportion of peer-reviewed articles (71% vs 81%) (P = .0001) and were more likely to be affiliated with the tobacco industry (50% vs 0%) than consensus document authors (P = .0004). CONCLUSIONS--Symposium articles on ETS differ from journal articles and consensus documents in ways that suggest that symposia are not balanced.

Authorship↗
PubMed1993

The impact of oral contraceptives on the experience of perimenstrual mood, clumsiness, food craving and other symptoms.

Two-hundred and seventy-six oral contraceptive (o.c.) users (171 combine o.c. and 105 triphasic o.c.) were compared with 276 non-o.c. users. All women regarded themselves as PMS sufferers, and the groups were matched for age, parity and marital status. Each woman rated severity of 27 symptoms during the premenstrual, menstrual and postmenstrual phases of their last menstrual cycle. The o.c. users reported significantly less menstrual pain and premenstrual breast tenderness. When controlling for the severity of premenstrual depression, there were no differences between the three groups in the timing or severity of perimenstrual food craving or clumsiness. When controlling for the severity of menstrual pain, the o.c. users showed significantly less improvement in negative mood during the menstrual phase, compared with non-users. The apparent tendency for o.c. users to show either a delayed or more prolonged pattern of perimenstrual negative mood deserves further study.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Patterns of authorship among chairmen of departments of medicine.

BACKGROUND: This study examines changes in the authorship patterns of chairmen of medicine departments from 1979 through 1990, a time when criteria for authorship were widely debated among medical journal editors. Chairmen were selected to be studied because, due to their leadership position and stature, they are likely to "set the example" for many scholars in the academic medicine community. METHOD: Computerized literature searches were conducted for all 233 persons who were chairmen during at least one year of the 12-year study period (1979-1990) to determine the average number of publications per chairman per year, the average number of coauthors per article published, the location of the chairman on the published list of authors, and other pertinent data required for a thorough analysis of authorship practices. Statistical methods included repeated-measure analysis, sensitivity analyses, and the use of linear models to analyze trends over time. RESULTS: Among all the chairmen, there was no statistically significant decrease in the average number of articles per year for which the chairmen were last authors, and there was a significant increase in the average number of coauthors per year on published articles. However, factors such as length of chairmanship, frequency of publication, and academic position (i.e., chair, pre-chair, or post-chair) were found to influence patterns of authorship; for example, the 61 individuals who were chairmen for ten years or more had a significant decrease in the number of last-author articles, whereas the 172 individuals who were chairmen for fewer than ten years had a significant increase. CONCLUSION: Changes in the definition of authorship by medical journal editors did not seem to be important influences on the authorship patterns of the chairmen, since the chairmen did not significantly decrease the number of articles for which they were the last authors, and they significantly increased the number of coauthors of their articles.

Authorship↗
PubMed1992

The publication of sponsored symposiums in medical journals.

BACKGROUND: An increasing proportion of spending by the pharmaceutical industry has gone to funding symposiums that are published by peer-reviewed medical journals. This study tests the hypothesis that such sponsorship, particularly by a single pharmaceutical company, is associated with a promotional orientation of the symposium and a distortion of the peer-review process. METHODS: We counted the symposiums published in 58 journals of clinical medicine and surveyed the journal editors regarding their policies for symposium issues. We analyzed the symposium issues that appeared in the 11 journals that published the most symposiums in order to determine the sponsor or sponsors, the topics, whether the titles were misleading, whether brand names were used, and whether the featured drugs were classified by the Food and Drug Administration as innovative or approved. RESULTS: The number of symposiums published per year increased steadily from 1966 through 1989. Forty-two percent of those analyzed (262 of 625) had a single pharmaceutical company as the sponsor. These symposiums were more likely than those with other sponsors to have misleading titles (P less than 0.001) and to use brand names (P less than 0.001), and less likely to be peer-reviewed in the same manner as other articles in the parent journal (P less than 0.001). Of the 161 symposiums that focused on a single drug, 51 percent concerned unapproved therapies; 14 percent concerned drugs classified as bringing important therapeutic gains. CONCLUSIONS: Symposiums sponsored by drug companies often have promotional attributes and are not peer-reviewed. Financial relations among symposium participants, sponsors, and journals should be completely disclosed, symposiums should be clearly identified, and journal editors should maintain editorial control over contributions from symposiums.

Congresses as Topic↗
PubMed1991

The Cantekin affair.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

American Medical Association↗