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Tue Aug 3 02:57:57 BST 2004

Interestingly, the new PLoS Medicine's editor is the departing editor of the
BMJ, Dr Richard Smith - who has been instrumental in turning the BMJ around,
spearheading medical publishing on-line, and taking on those that others
will not.  Here is his last editorial for the BMJ:

Karim

Editor's choice
> 
>  My last choice
> 
> Do you need approval from an ethics committee to ring up chief executives 
> of hospitals and ask them questions? As a journalist, a member of 
> parliament, or a confidence trickster you wouldn't, but if you are a 
> researcher who has drawn up a protocol you might. Ethics committees, which

> were devised to protect vulnerable patients from some abuse, have
forgotten
> why they were created and have begun to equate chief executives with the 
> unconscious or the mentally incompetent. They have, in other words, spun 
> out of control. 
> 
> No fewer than five sets of researchers describe a series of Kafkaesque 
> experiences with ethics committees that have made research difficult or 
> impossible (p 277, p 280, p 282, p 286, and p 288), and an editorial 
> analyses other barriers to research (p 241). We commissioned only the 
> editorial; the other pieces arrived spontaneously, reflecting frustration,

> anger, and even despair among researchers. There must, of course, be a 
> balance between the needs of research and the interests of patients--but, 
> as healthcare workers lack evidence for much of what they do, research is 
> important. It is unlikely to be in the public interest to make it more 
> difficult to do research. 
> 
> And that is almost it. I have 280 words before I get off the BMJ stage. I 
> end my time as editor on 30 July, and I go not alone but with Sir Anthony 
> Grabham, the chairman of the BMJ Publishing Group's board and the holder
of
> a great restoration comedy name. I've been around for only a quarter of a 
> century, whereas Tony has done 50 years with the BMA, moving smoothly from

> young firebrand through steady hand at the tiller to elder statesman. He 
> became chairman of the council of the BMA at a time when membership 
> threatened to fall below 50% and the finances were distinctly shaky. He 
> turned things round, and profits of the BMJ Publishing Group have also 
> grown since he became chairman of the board. We, the staff, are grateful
to
> him for his stewardship. 
> 
> Editors of the BMJ are, my predecessor insisted, alternating fools and 
> bastards. He was clear that he was a bastard rather than a fool and that 
> his predecessor was a fool. That makes me a fool, and I accept the
judgment
> without a murmur. But I hope that I've been a jolly fool. Even more 
> ambitiously, I would aspire to be like the fool in King Lear. 
> 
> It is time now for me to climb into the picture of all the past editors of

> the BMJ that hangs outside our office. They are mostly glum looking with 
> lots of facial hair. I will look down from my space on my ex-colleagues
for
> a few years before somebody takes down the picture, puts it on eBay, fails

> to get a buyer, and then throws it out. I find the thought of oblivion 
> deeply comforting, but even more comforting is the thought of my
successors
> doing wonderful things. And I know they will. 
> 
> Richard Smith, editor ( <mailto:rsmith at bmj.com> rsmith at bmj.com)
> ______________________________
> To receive Editor's choice by email each week subscribe via our website: 
> bmj.com/cgi/customalert 

-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Armstrong [mailto:docbear at sympatico.ca] 
Sent: 02 August 2004 16:18
To: 'SURGINET: General Surgery Discussion List'
Cc: 'Trauma & Critical Care mailing list'; trauma-l at lists.aast.org
Subject: Advertisement for PLoS Medicine; Freedom of Information and
Politics.

Colleagues:

Please read Andy Gass' e-mail about the Public Library of Science's
<http://www.plos.org/>  new open-access journal, PLoS Medicine
<http://www.plosmedicine.org/medicine/index.html>  (see below), a journal
that will soon release its first issue.  

Other PLoS journals include PLoS Materials (pending) and PLoS
<http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=index-html> Biology.  For
example: 

Here
<http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fj
ournal.pbio.0020239>  is a PLoS Biology article on the genetics of insect
wound-healing. 

Here
<http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fj
ournal.pbio.0020007>  is a discussion of gene expression in fibroblasts - a
new marker for cancer progression in humans.

PLoS journals depend upon an egalitarian concept of publishing.  They will
be available for open-access on the Web and for free copying. Those wanting
paper copies are free to print their own from the Website, alternatively
individuals or institutions can purchase paper subscriptions.  

PLoS journals are fully peer-reviewed and expected to contain some of the
finest scientific work. Authors of papers or the grant-providing sponsors of
research will pay the costs of peer-review and publication.    

<Political Comment>

Supporters of PLoS see scientific knowledge as a 'common good', which should
be made freely available to all.  

Attempts to control or restrict medical knowledge are elitist, tragically
misguided and doomed to failure.  As anyone with a teenage downloader in the
family knows, the real power of copyright law is rapidly fading. 

We live in a world where medical articles can be readily copied, sent by fax
or e-mailed to thousands around the world.  Our e-mail lists have seen many
examples of such guerrilla distribution of copyright material -- forwarded
PDF copies of 'copyrighted' medical articles.  

Copyright law, originally created to encourage and protect authors, has
become a barrier to the free exchange of information.  Intellectual property
law primarily rewards first-world persons or corporations.   

(The argument is continued in Andy Gass et al's editorial, "Whose
<http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fj
ournal.pbio.0020228> Copy Whose Rights?" PLoS Biology, July 2004.)

</Political comment>

You may be interested in reading PLoS Medicine
<http://www.plosmedicine.org/medicine/index.html> .  If so, then create a
reminder in your Calendar/Schedule program to visit their Website for each
month's issue.  

If you are a researcher/author you may wish to include the costs of PLoS
publishing in your next application for a research grant.

Barry Armstrong

General Surgeon

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Declared Interests:  I have no financial or other association with PLoS,
other than being an avid reader.

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Gass at PLoS [mailto:agass at plos.org] 
Sent: August 2, 2004 15:37
To: Barry Armstrong
Subject: Welcome to the PLoS Medicine E-mail Update List

As we hope you've heard, PLoS Medicine is now accepting submissions for its
autumn 2004 launch, which means that *now* is the time that we need the help
of everyone who is excited to see our next journal succeed. The grassroots
actions you take will have a tremendous impact on the reception PLoS
Medicine receives in your community; every contribution you can make to our
own efforts to get the word out about this new open-access, peer-reviewed
forum for important developments in medicine will be extremely valuable. 

What can you do to help spread the word?

1) Include a PLoS Medicine slide in any talks you give. You can download
PowerPoint slides at http://www.plosmedicine.org/medicine/materials/ . 

2) Put up posters announcing our call-for-papers and advertising PLoS and
its mission. You can download them at the site listed above, or e-mail us
and we'll send you some glossy ones to post. Be sure to check back regularly
for new designs!

3) Forward the PDF of our call-for-papers to your colleagues who might have
manuscripts to submit to PLoS Medicine (available at
http://www.plosmedicine.org/medicine/materials/pmed_cfp_poster.pdf ).

4) Ask your local Web folks to link to http://www.plosmedicine.org
<http://www.plosmedicine.org/>   from the home page of your organization's
site. All the information they'll need is, like our other downloadables, at
http://www.plosmedicine.org/medicine/materials/ .  

5) Add PLoS Medicine to your e-mail signature, as I've done below.

We hope you'll contact us with any questions about other ways you might be
able to help, with suggestions about strategies for getting the word out
about PLoS Medicine, and with updates about what you've done to tell your
colleagues about the latest project from the Public Library of Science. 

Thank you for your interest in PLoS Medicine!

Andy Gass

Outreach Coordinator

Public Library of Science

**************************

PLoS Medicine

The open-access general medical journal from the Public Library of Science 

Inaugural issue: autumn 2004 

Share your discoveries with the world

http://www.plosmedicine.org

.ca

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Advertisement for PLoS Medicine; Freedom of Information and Politics.