Medical Publishing

Is snarky honest real-time discussion of a paper's conclusions more constructive to the authors and the larger scientific enterprise than formal, reserved, and staid holding forth in the correspondence section of a classic clinical journal? Fact is that this discussion will be over even before the next issue of the journal comes out. A really interesting interplay has been ongoing across the sci/med blogosphere following a commentary last Wednesday by Dr Isis on a NEJM correspondence, entitled, "Shifts to and from Daylight Saving Time and Incidence of Myocardial Infarction." (free full text…
No..it's a false alarm. [***or not - see note added at end of post] But I had to do a double-take last night when reading my e-mail notification of the new HealthCentral newsletter with the subject line: Celebrate Alzheimer's Awareness Month; How risky is your sexual behavior? For the grammar police out there, this is a great example of the difference in meaning of a semi-colon vs. a colon. However, given the size of the print on my screen and my pending need for bifocals, I couldn't tell the difference. Anyway, I blame the editors of the e-mail release for alarming me. Or maybe it was…
Today's New York Times notes this weekend's launch of Elsevier's OncologySTAT website: But now Reed Elsevier, which publishes more than 400 medical and scientific journals, is trying an experiment that stands this model on its head. Over the weekend it introduced a Web portal, www.OncologySTAT.com, that gives doctors free access to the latest articles from 100 of its own pricey medical journals and that plans to sell advertisements against the content. The new site asks oncologists to register their personal information. In exchange, it gives them immediate access to the latest cancer-related…