Me and a dozen other academics all just wrote basically the same thing about Open Science in the Journal Of Clinical Epidemiology. After the technical bits, me and Tracey get our tank out. That’s for a reason: publishing academic papers about structural problems in science is a necessary condition for change, but it’s not sufficient. We don’t need any more cohort studies on the global public health problem of publication bias; we need action, of which the AllTrials.net campaign is just one example (and as part of that, we do still need many more audits giving performance figures on individual companies, researchers and institutions, as I explain here). We have a paper coming shortly on the methods and strategies of the AllTrials campaign that I hope will shed a little more light on this, because policy change for public health is a professional activity, not a hobby. Where academics are sneery about implementation, problems go unsolved, and patients are harmed.
Ironically all these papers on Open Science are behind an academic paywall. The full final text of our paper is posted below. If you’re an academic and you’ve ever wondered whether you’re allowed to do this, but felt overwhelmed by complex terms and conditions, you can check every academic journal’s blanket policy very easily here.
And lastly, if you’re in a hurry: the last two paragraphs are the money shot. Enjoy.
Fixing flaws in science must be professionalised. Read the rest of this entry »
