Jocalyn Clark's blog

We need in medical academia to care more about quality than prestige: The quality of our research, of our publication and dissemination goals, of the impact of our work, and of our hiring and promotion decisions. So instead of “Publish or Perish,” perhaps our mantra ought to be “Quality or Quit.”

Thirty four years later we have a new report, with seemingly no new messages. Regrettably I think we can assume no new progress on social justice.

Panellists noted that the recent NIH public access policy emphasises free not open access. That is, the policy may lead to freely accessible publications (for which publishers or organisations may reap profits from charging authors a fee to deposit their manuscripts), but these will remain under restrictive licenses (thus limiting text-mining).

The US presidential campaign, while fascinating, tends to overshadow policy debates in other countries.

This week the debate about safe-injection sites in Canada again reared its ugly head. Safe-injection sites, which exist in only a few cities in the world, are health facilities that allow injection drug users to legally use under supervision, with the aim of reducing harm to users’ health and to the public.

Since today (20 May) is the third annual international clinical trials day it seemed the perfect occasion to share some trials news with PLoS Medicine readers.

Many of you will know that new FDA legislation in the United States will require, from September 2008, public reporting of basic trial results within one year of study completion. Many organisations and institutions will now be thinking about how to comply with the new requirements. Some groups are coming together to discuss how to standardise and implement results disclosure — as they did for trial registration with the Ottawa Statements and the WHO International Standards of Trial Registration.