Abstract
Greetings!
Happy Spring! I’m very pleased with this issue of International Journal of Toxicology. Not only do we have some interesting basic science papers to enjoy, but we also have a paper featuring a systematic review of manuscripts on the topic of in utero trichloroethylene exposure and cardiac malformations (see article by Wikoff et al in this issue). For those of you who are not familiar with systematic reviews, this is a process that can be “applied to environmental health questions to provide greater objectivity and transparency to the process of developing conclusions.” 1
I’d also like to report that session and continuing education (CE) course planning and development for the 2018 American College of Toxicology (ACT) Annual Meeting is steaming ahead. As many of you know, International Journal of Toxicology publishes overview articles based on symposia and CE courses presented at the ACT annual meeting. There are many reasons to do this. Publication of a symposium or CE course overview article greatly extends the visibility of the session to meeting attendees (recall, at the ACT annual meeting, there are generally 3 concurrent sessions, so not everyone attending the meeting will necessarily be able to attend your session), as well as other scientists worldwide. This is also an excellent opportunity for individuals whose work data are confidential, so they cannot submit and publish manuscripts based on their work. My goal is to convince many of our session organizers and presenters that this is a good idea and to publish these articles all together in a dedicated issue of International Journal of Toxicology.
If you agree that this is a good idea, I strongly suggest that the writing of the manuscript is conducted in parallel with the development of slide presentations, rather than having manuscript preparation as a postmeeting task. The ideal time for submission of the overview articles is during January and February, 2019. International Journal of Toxicology has published a number of session overview articles over the years, including one that was expanded to a review article by Bill Brock and his session participants in 2014. 2 Another nice example was published by ACT VP-Elect Lorrene Buckley and her coauthors in 2011, 3 and still another very recent symposium overview article was prepared by Norman Kim and colleagues. 4
Please enjoy this issue and feel free to contact me with questions or suggestions.