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Dear All, A recent claim posted to the list was: "The choice ... is between having reviews written by somebody with some linkage (and dependency) from the industry, having them written by someone who has little idea of what is writing about, on having no reviews at all." This categorization, like George Bush's categorization of states that were "with him or against him" (one might be unsure) is questionable. There are a great number of people who are eminently qualified to write narrative reviews who have no ties to industry. People in my limited circle who are experts in their fields but have no industry ties include Professor Jeffrey Aronson who is an expert in Clinical Pharmacology, Sir Iain Chalmers, who is an expert in systematic reviews, Mike Clarke, an expert in many things and there are many others in the UK, Canada, the US, Italy, Denmark, and elsewhere. MORE IMPORTANTLY, even if we can't find an expert in the precise field who has no industry ties, there are many experts in related fields who are eminently qualified to write narrative reviews in these fields. In fact coming from a related field might offer a fresh perspective. (To name just one example, Louis Pasteur was not a medical doctor.) Indeed the promise of an editorial in a prominent journal that would change practice would be a sufficient motivation for many potential 'related' experts to write fantastic, and less problematic reviews. Jeremy * please note my email address is now [log in to unmask] -- Jeremy Howick PhD, MSc, PGCert, DipSoc, BA MRC/ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine University of Oxford Oxford OX3 7LF United Kingdom www.cebm.net www.primarycare.ox.ac.uk/dept_staff/jeremy-howick/ eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-140519667X,descCd-authorInfo.htm l On 13/08/2011 04:34, "Piersante Sestini" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >The choice then is between having reviews written by somebody with some >linkage (and dependency) from the industry, having them written by >someone who has little idea of what is writing about, on having no >reviews at all.