PLoS Medicine challenges "disease mongering"

Good news today for the open access journal PLoS Medicine from the US non-profit Public Library of Science, an organisation committed to making scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.

It's latest issue has given prominence to a collection of articles on Disease Mongering, including some seriously challenging articles like "Bigger and Better: How Pfizer Redefined Erectile Dysfunction", "The Latest Mania: Selling Bipolar Disorder", "Cholinesterase Inhibitors: Drugs Looking for a Disease?", and "Pharmaceutical Marketing and the Invention of the Medical Consumer".

PLoS Medicine published the articles to coincide with an inaugural conference on the issue in Australia earlier this month. Disease Mongering – quite an evocative term isn't it - is of increasing concern to medical professionals, as market forces start to distort the activities of the giant pharmaceutical companies. Their vast marketing and PR machines have, however, already begun the fightback.

The UK liberal broadsheet The Guardian has today, for instance, published a large report in its financial news section allowing the likes of GlaxoSmithKline to respond to the allegations. GSK has been accused of creating the "restless legs" syndrome as part of its marketing activities around the launch of its Ropinirole drug. But lots of other drugs – from Viagra to Zyprexa – are also being targeted as examples of corporate-created solutions that went in search of a "disease".

PLoS has done a great job in bringing this subject to a wider audience. I'd sincerely hope that similar issues would be aired in those STM journals and magazines that take advertising revenues from the drugs companies. But in an age where pharmaceutical firms are directly sponsoring online journals and magazines (take Breast Cancer Resource, sponsored by AstraZeneca), I'd wonder how much the journalistic ethics of independence and investigation could be compromised in such environments. No pharma company would ever allow its money to be used to support such challenging editorial content as that currently available through PLoS Medicine.

More to Ebsco's database than meets the spy?

I personally can't wait to clap eyes on the new interface for Ebsco's spook-friendly International Security & Counter-Terrorism Reference Center (ISCTRC) database.

With over 2 million full-text articles in the collection, ISCTRC will appeal not just to researchers and analysts in the fields of national security and terrorism studies, but also those involved in ameliorating such business-critical issues as risk assessment, corporate security and disaster planning. This Flash advert might even appeal to budding secret agents.

So the articles that may be of interest in this, admittedly US-centric, database could well be about the San Francisco earthquake or this summer's hurricane season in the Caribbean, as much as information on the new US government agency to replace FEMA or the release of the 9/11 themed movie United 93.

I'm hoping Ebsco can arrange a VIP pass for me to get in there and snoop round so I can review it real soon now!

Bathtubs & garden sheds on the BL piazza

There were bustling lunchtime crowds on the piazza at the British Library in St Pancras today, enjoying the magnificent red brick-textured public space. But we weren't too enamoured by the unsightly bathtub and garden shed making incongruous neighbours to the inspirational Eduardo Paolozzi statue of Isaac Newton.

They're there to advertise the new Business and IP Centre reading room, set up to inspire start-ups to use the BL to research ideas ("great ideas happen in the bathtub" and "great inventions come together in the garden shed" – get the thinking behind this?).

As marketing ideas go, this is fairly school-level stuff, and smacks of ever so teensy budgets. Let's hope there's much greater inspiration for publicising the next major exhibition on 100 Years of the British Newspaper.

The Pearson Gallery, where this will be held from 25 May to 8 October, is currently empty, apart from a solitary lonely scaffolding tower. Still, it's a whole month before it's transformed into a stunning Front Page extravaganza, with interactive virtual areas where you can "experience the excitement and pace of a newsroom".

We can't wait – it'll make a nice relaxing change from the 24-hour madness and buzz that is the IWR blog-room!

Private Eye gives LiS the once over

It's not very often that a VNU Exhibitions event gets to appear in Private Eye, but this week's issue of the piss-taking satirical journal has a gentle dig at the Library + information show, now due to grace the NEC Pavilion in a fortnight.

An anonymous writer takes issue with marketing brochures for the show that emphasize the cutting edge technologies on display. It harrumphs: "The list of exhibitors hypes CD listing posts, animated message display boards, minimalist steel shelving, access to 2m blogs, and beautifully crafted custom furniture… But in a 1,100 word promo, books get just one mention."

We hesitate to use the word "Luddite" or "dinosaur" to describe the writer, lest we suffer the slings and arrows of anonymous poison darts in retaliation. But what s/he fails to observe is that the show isn't a book fair. Far from it in fact; it's about the resources that librarians and information professionals need to do their jobs more effectively in these fast-moving times.

Sources close to the show's manager, Nigel Clear, suggest he took the ribbing with good humour: "That's nice of them," he is reported to have said, "keeping up with us in these changing times." We shall keep peepers peeled for Private Eye hacks in Birmingham looking for more scandal and intrigue, although we won't hold our breath.

Elsevier, time to ask for a greater discount?

Negotiating a renewal deal with Elsevier?  Before you sign on the dotted line you might like to see just how much the Chief Executive Sir Crispin Davis takes home a year, click here for the story in IWR news.

Yes a take home of £1,991,516, consisting of a basic salary of £1m, with an annual bonus of £923,343, not bad. To be fair Elsevier performed well with results up by 7%.

As you can see from the latest issue of Information World Review, we're pretty busy re-designing, so can't go into the full debate on chief execs/pay/value for money etc etc. But for those of you buying content, it does pose the question, show me how my money is invested in the product if I spend it with you Elsevier?

Entering the blogging conversation

So IWR joins the blogging revolution, is it simply jumping onto the bandwagon?  For those of you that still wonder about the viability of blogging, and I counted myself amongst you until very recently, I suggest you read a book.  The Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, published by John Wiley & Sons, will not fail to highlight the positive aspects of blogging. And isn't it nice that in this age of blogging, a book is still the main way of getting the message across!

The Naked Conversation is without doubt a pro-blogging read, but its honestly written and doesn't shy away from the negative aspects of being a blogger. For information professionals, researchers and those of us who earn a crust in the information trade this book does highlight how blogging, like the internet, TV, radio and cinema before is another viable way of distributing information and therefore we should all consider it.

Don't believe me, buy the book, turn to page 72 and read about Andrew Carton, creator and editor of Treonauts, a site devoted to the Treo handheld device.  Carton has created an information resource for a niche market, using the latest and one of the most affordable systems and is now generating revenues as high as $20,000, money none of us can turn our noses up to. 

Making hay from the weapons of war

News that Wiley has launched the 8th edition of the Wiley Registry of Mass Spectral Data was initially greeted with raised eyebrows, even if it is "the essential foundation resource for all mass spectrometry libraries". The Wiley Registry contains nearly 400,000 mass spectra with over 183,000 chemical structures sourced from laboratories throughout the world, and most spectra are accompanied by the structure and trivial name, molecular formula, molecular weight, nominal mass, and base peak.

But what made our eyebrows dance was the discovery that a new feature of this edition was data on chemical warfare precursors, amongst a whole lot of other new information for target readers, who include "scientists in forensics and homeland defense". So here's another information provider targeting the cash that floods through the US military establishment.

There's tons of money to be made, but as we were reminded by the recent ruckus in the UK over The Lancet's links to Elsevier's defence industry tradeshows, making money out of the weapons trade is not one that fits lightly with other more morally high-minded academic research. Sometimes the academics with consciences start kicking up a stink.

Welcome to the IWR blog

This is an exciting new opportunity for the team at IWR to keep you updated on breaking news and other developments on a daily basis, and to keep you entertained! If you have a point to make or something to share, feel free to comment.

Like the monthly print publication and IWR website, our blog is wide-ranging and, we hope, a little opinionated. Enough to stimulate thought and discussion on issues relevant to the ever-changing information industry. Enjoy!