A librarian shared a link to this article with the Medlib email list today.

New Protocol: Worrisome Ailment in Medicine: Misleading Journal Articles; Editors Demand More Data T Ensure Full Disclosure of Drug Risks, Trial Gaps; Sarbanes-Oxley for Professors.
by Anna Wilde Mathews
Wall Street Journal May 10, 2005 pg. A1.
(not free online)

Brief excerpt:
"Doctors and patients who rely on medical journals for drug information have a problem: discrepancies between published information and the full results of the studies behind them. Now some top journals are cracking down."

The article mentions that 65% of 122 articles published last year in JAMA did not completely report harmful drug effects and 50% of the articles had gaps in the over all effectiveness of the drug.

The WSJ artice states it is the ever increasing use of medical journal articles as publicity and marketing tools of the drug companies. Leading journals such as JAMA, NEJM and BMJ are starting to take measures to try and prevent publishing these misleading articles. BMJ is requiring authors to submit the original study design so that reviewser can determine if the author changed their primary outcomes.

I share the same feelings as the librarian on Medlib. With his latest discovery and the recent news of the ghost-writing journal articles, one has got to be concerned about reliable valid medical research information.