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

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Communications
• Publication Ethics

Background:

• Physicians rely on peer-reviewed literature for clinical decisions.
• Ensuring accurate reporting and minimizing commercial influence in biomedical journals is crucial.
• Numerous organizations have established ethical guidelines for biomedical communications since the 1990s.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the need for Good Publication Practices (GPP) guidelines tailored for medical communications agencies.
• To develop GPP guidelines specifically for the AXIS group of agencies in the United States.

Main Methods:

• A task force reviewed existing guidelines from various professional organizations.
• The review identified an unmet need for agency-specific GPP.

Main Results:

• No prior publication details GPP for medical communications agencies.
• Medical communications agencies face distinct challenges in managing relationships between authors, companies, and publishers.

Conclusions:

• This article presents the first GPP guidelines developed from the perspective of a medical communications agency.
• These guidelines aim to uphold ethical standards in biomedical communications for agencies.