Abstract
We read with great interest the article by Boorman et al. (2015) on “The Value of Publishing Negative Scientific Study Data.” This article succinctly demonstrates the value of publishing negative results not only in the field of toxicology but also for the scientific community and for human health as a whole. Over the past few years, we have seen an increase in articles discussing this issue, yet there appears to be little shift in accepting and publishing negative data among the scientific community. This opinion piece explores how medical and scientific communities, particularly journals and registries, can play a critical role in paving the way for a paradigm shift in the acceptance of negative data appearing in literature.
The article tells us that studies have demonstrated that “negative results are gradually disappearing from the literature in most disciplines and countries.” This is not surprising. Historically and even today, scientists have struggled to publish their data in esteemed journals for lack of novelty or interest. Yet it still remains that negative scientific study data valuably add to the plethora of scientific knowledge. The authors quote scientists and journals being intensely interested in impact factors. This is a very real problem and one which the scientific and medical communities must address.
Over the last 10 years, we have seen a dramatic increase in journals launched specifically for publishing negative results or having set sections which do so. This is certainly a step in the right direction, although some areas like surgery still don’t have a dedicated negative results journal. Yet work must still be done to make a substantial dent to the immense positive study publication bias present. We agree with the authors in that journal editors should add an active policy for publishing negative data to their acceptance criteria; however, in practice, this may be difficult to implement, particularly at peer review. We propose that journals specifically publishing negative results or having negative results sections may be a better approach.
To this effect, formation of registries which publish all data pertaining to their scientific and medical disciplines should be encouraged and, as this article states, would engender potentially enormous savings in resources. Our group has recently launched the Research Registry, an international database that registers all studies with human participants. In fact, the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki 2013 (http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/, accessed February 2016) provides a strong ethical mandate for registering all types of research studies.
It is our ethical duty as individuals in the scientific and medical community to ensure negative studies are accurately and fairly represented in the literature not only for the compendium of scientific knowledge but also for knowing what works and what doesn’t, optimizing resource allocation and wider transparency.