Two papers commenting on a recent proposal to require registration of observational epidemiological studies have just been published electronically on OEM’s web site. These commentaries offer differing views as to what should be done, but neither is a statement of this journal’s policy.

We currently do not require observational research submitted to OEM to be registered and we have no plans to do so. This position is based primarily on the belief that observational studies are fundamentally different from clinical trials in both objectives and scientific approach.

I will explain the Journal’s policy and the reasons behind it in a future issue of the printed journal. Readers are also invited to give their opinions on whether observational studies should be registered in contributions to the OEM blog.

Dana Loomis
Editor

By Dana Loomis

I’m pleased to announce the initiation of the Occupational & Environmental Medicine blog, available at http://blogs.bmj.com/oem/. The OEM blog is edited by Dr. Leslie Elliott.  It’s our hope that the blog will serve the occupational and environmental health community as a forum for discussion and debate of current issues in the field. We welcome a wide range of relevant contributions, including comments on articles published in the Journal, discussion of developments of interest to researchers and practitioners, novel observations and ideas for research, news, and announcements.  As this is a new medium for OEM, we expect that the blog will develop in its own way as the community begins to use it.

Blog Policy:

Contributions to the OEM blog are not peer reviewed, but are screened for relevance and appropriateness and may be edited before posting.  As with other correspondence with the Journal, we reserve the right to decline contributions that are trivial, incomprehensible, or represent advertising, and we cannot publish material that is offensive, libelous or illegal.