Medical editor lambasts journals and editors

摘要

Medical journals are riddled with errors and are improving only slowly, and medical editors are neglecting their craft. These were the conclusions of Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of JAMA, at the end of the fourth congress on peer review in biomedical publication organised by JAMA and held in Barcelona this week. The conference heard from Doug Altaian, statistical adviser to the BMJ, how medical journals continue to be full of serious methodological errors, meaning that many studies reach false conclusions. The problem was identified many years ago, and yet there have been few improvements. Medical research is too often done by untrained people for the wrong reasons, including career advancement.