Editors and researchers have worried for years that many clinical trials never appear in the medical literature. The human studies most likely to go unreported are small trials, ones that reach negative conclusions, and ones that don't achieve statistical significance. As a result, the research literature suffers from what editors call "publication bias." How can the literature become more representative of the research that's being done? The answer is simple, say some, and is the same as the solution they see for many other publishing woes: open access. That's why the Public Library of Science, commonly called PLoS, is scheduled to announce today that it is starting a freely accessible online journal called PLoS Clinical Trials....Open access, says Emma Veitch, the new journal's publications manager, makes it possible to publish "the sorts of trials which otherwise might not get out there." In contrast, journals that rely on subscriptions to pay the bills feel pressure to publish high-profile studies that will attract readers' attention, she says. Other studies deserve to be reported, adds Ms. Veitch, even if their results are disappointing....Kirby P. Lee, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California at San Francisco, says he hopes the new journal will help rebalance the medical literature. Mr. Lee has performed a study of more than 1,000 manuscripts submitted to three top-tier medical journals. At the Fifth International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication in Chicago in September, he reported that journal editors were not the source of publication bias. The journals, he found, tended to accept the same fraction of negative studies as they had received. His and others' research suggests that authors themselves are the source of the bias: They rarely submit for publication a study that has negative or statistically insignificant results. Mr. Lee says authors are hesitant to submit those studies to most journals because they fear editors will reject them. But PLoS Clinical Trials explicitly says it welcomes such research. "This open-access journal is wonderful," Mr. Lee says, "because it says, 'Hey, we just want to look at the data. Regardless of the outcome, if it's a strong study, we will publish it.' It will increase the available evidence so that clinicians can make appropriate decisions on therapies."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/18/2005 07:30:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
