The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics
| Discipline | Pharmacology |
|---|---|
| Language | English, French, Italian |
| Publication details | |
| History | 1959-present |
| Publisher | |
| Frequency | Biweekly |
| Standard abbreviations | |
| ISO 4 | Med. Lett. Drugs Ther. |
| Indexing | |
| CODEN | MELEAP |
| ISSN | 1523-2859 |
| LCCN | 00211546 |
| OCLC no. | 40606056 |
| Links | |
The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics (commonly referred to as The Medical Letter) is a peer-reviewed biweekly medical journal providing evaluations of pharmaceutical drugs. It is published in English, French, and Italian. The journal is abstracted and indexed in Index medicus/MEDLINE/PubMed. An offshoot, Treatment Guidelines from The Medical Letter (ISSN 1541-2792) was published from 2002-2014, when it was integrated into this journal.
Editorial process
Articles for The Medical Letter are drafted by either an editor or external consultant using both published and available unpublished studies that are reviewed for methodological rigor with special attention to the results of clinical trials. A preliminary draft is circulated to every member of the advisory board and 10-20 other investigators with relevant clinical or experimental experience with the article's topic. Drafts are also provided to the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to all first authors of articles cited in the text. The evaluation of each drug includes a discussion of its efficacy, side effects, and a comparison with older, more established agents. The final version of the paper includes comments from the reviewers and is checked and edited for accuracy and readability.[1]
The Medical Letter was first published in 1972, which was also the year that Aaron left Consumers Union after having been there since its founding.[2]
Publisher
The journal is published by The Medical Letter, Inc., a nonprofit organization founded in 1958 by Arthur Kallet and Harold Aaron. It is independent of the pharmaceutical industry and is supported solely by subscriptions. It accepts no advertising, grants, or donations and has had a strict policy in place that in order to retain their objectivity, no reprints will be sold to the pharmaceutical industry.
References
- ^ "Flowchart of the editorial process" (PDF). The Medical Letter, Inc. Retrieved 2010-06-29.
- ^ staff (August 30, 1988). "Dr. Harold Aaron, Consultant, 82". The New York Times. New York: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 August 2014.