Kelly:
I know the NEJM well both as a physician as well from the business end since I was on the MMS Committee on Publications which oversees it. I also know someone who worked in the office for several years who is familiar with acceptance/rejection policies and rates.
I have posted that the company had stated that the article was still pending (i.e., not rejected) at the time of the August shareholder meeting. The company has no reason to be deceptive about this; they have complete confidence in the product, as do many people of quality.
I can tell you that articles often go to people who are considered experts in their field. Some experts have done research in the same field that a candidate article deals with. They may have preconceived notions about specific hypotheses. They are supposed to act without prejudice but they are people and they have political agendas. Your academician friends should be well-familiar with this. Also, articles can take months and months to publish because the review process often requires revisions. Whether politically or legitimately required, revisions can take months and months. I do not know what happened in this case but it appears that the operatives got frustrated because they had their own deadlines in mind. I can't speak for anyone else but they probably wanted to have the first study published since the results of the second study (prevention, specific viral strain innoculation, etc.) are supposed to be available soon, according to the press releases they are probably complete by now.
BTW, Kevin's statement about the NEJM and prepublished material is not entirely correct. Specifically, material that has been presented at a conference (as the Gel Tech study was) is ,not prohibited from publishing there. If you look at the details of the NEJM guidelines for authors - they are on the web and in every issue, you will see that I am correct.
This is all my opinion based on what I was told at the shareholder meeting. There is a lot of history and reasoning for the study design as it was - I have posted it in other places and I do not feel the need to get into that again.
I think that if the results of the second study are in the neighborhood, statistically speaking, of the first one then this will make Zicam completely accepted by the medical community. Again, JMO. |
