This Week in PLoS Medicine: Transparency in medical publishing; Toxicity in pesticides; Conflicts of interest & more

In the closing issue during October we published six articles,  including an editorial and two perspectives.

In this month’s editorial, the PLoS Medicine Editors discuss a new paper in PLoS Medicine by Andreas Lundh and colleagues that examines medical journals’ competing interests. The editorial reinforces the call by Harvey Marcovitch for journals to be transparent and discloses PLoS Medicine‘s sources of income for 2009.

In a prospective cohort study of patients presenting with pesticide self-poisoning, Andrew Dawson and colleagues investigate the relative human toxicity of agricultural pesticides and contrast it with WHO toxicity classifications, which are based on toxicity in rats.

Andreas Lundh and colleagues report their study that investigated the effect of publication of large industry-supported trials on citations and journal income (through reprint sales) in six general medical journals.

Caroline Relton and George Davey Smith discuss the potential of epigenetics for the treatment and prevention of common complex diseases, including cancer.

Two perspectives were published today as well: Matthew Miller and Kavi Bhalla discuss new research findings from Andrew Dawson and colleagues on the human toxicity of pesticides in Sri Lanka, and call for urgent reclassification of agricultural pesticides to help reduce suicides by poisonings.

In addition, Harvey Marcovitch discusses new research findings from Andreas Lundh and colleagues that examined the effect of publishing industry-funded clinical trials on journal citations and reprint income at six major medical journals.

Remember you can comment on, annotate and rate any PLoS Medicine article and see the views, citations and other indications of impact of an article on that articles metrics tab.