Comment on: Good publication practice guidelines for medical communications agencies: a MedComm perspective

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Correspondence on: Good publication practice guidelines for medical communications agencies: a MedComm perspective [Bareket-Samish A et al., Curr Med Res Opin 2009;25:453-61 (doi: 10.1185/03007990802646584)]

Dear Sir,

We wish to clarify that the recent perspective from Bareket-Samish et al.1 is not related to Good Publication Practices for Pharmaceutical Companies, commonly and globally referred to as GPP2,3. GPP was published in 2003 by Liz Wager et al., and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) initiated an update to GPP in 2008. The new GPP guidelines will be released by ISMPP in 2009. ISMPP's concern lies with the use of ‘Good Publication Practice’ and ‘GPP’ in the Bareket-Samish et al. perspective, which has created confusion within the medical publication professional community.

Gene Snyder and Chris Graf

International Society for Medical Publication Professionals, PO Box 2523, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10562, USA: [email protected]

Declaration of funding: None. Declaration of financial/other relationships: G.S. is the current President of ISMPP and an employee of Envision Pharma, a publication planning agency. C.G. is Co-chair of the Standards and Best Practices Committee of ISMPP and an employee of Wiley-Blackwell. Neither author has any conflict of interests to disclose outside of their employment designations. Acknowledgment: None.

References

• Bareket-Samish A, Denny M, Ruzicka B, et al. Good publication practice guidelines for medical communications agencies: a MedComm perspective. Curr Med Res Opin 2009;25:453-61
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Wager E, Field E, Grossman L. Good publication practices for pharmaceutical companies. Curr Med Res Opin 2003;19:149-54
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Good publication practices for pharmaceutical companies. GPP Web site. http://www.gpp-guidelines.org. Accessed March 13, 2009
   Google Scholar

Authors’ reply

Dear Sir,

We thank Messrs Snyder and Graf for the opportunity to clarify our use of the phrase ‘good publication practice’ (GPP) in the title of our article1. Although the Wager et al.2 to which they refer is a highly useful and well-known document in the medical publishing community (and is cited in our own paper), the phrase neither originated with, nor is unique to, the pharmaceutical company guidelines. For example, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) had already published guidelines for good publication practice in their 1999 Annual Report3. Our intention was to use the term to refer to the more general principles of ethical conduct in biomedical publishing rather than a specific set of GPP guidelines. We hope that our own GPP guidelines can serve as a complement to those previously published by COPE, Wager et al., and other individuals and organizations. We regret any confusion caused by our use of the term GPP, and we eagerly look forward to the 2009 release of the Good Publication Practices for Pharmaceutical Companies now being updated by The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals.

Avital Bareket-Samish

Helix, 1400 Fashion Island Blvd, Suite 400, San Mateo, CA 94404, USA. Avital. [email protected]

Declaration of funding: None. Declaration of financial/other relationships: A.B.-S. is an employee of Axis Healthcare Communications agencies and developed the co-authored article¹ and this Author reply as part of her employment. Acknowledgment: None.