Archives of Internal Medicine on Editorial Policies and Publication Bias

An editorial on June 8 in the Archives of Internal Medicine discusses the problem of publication bias - that is "negative" papers, especially trials, being less likely to make it into the published record. There are a number of reasons for this, from authors not submitting such papers to journals being less likely to publish them. Everyone now agrees that the consequences for the validity of the scientific record are substantial, though the solution is not simple. The journal discusses a paper they have just published - a trial of starting nicotine gum 4 weeks before time of stopping smoking, which did not improve long-termsmoking abstinence compared with treatment beginning  on the actual stopping date.