Peer Review: Providing Quality Assurance to Pharmacists and Patients

• Published in: Canadian pharmacists journal Vol. 142; no. 3; p. 112
• Main Author: Taylor, Iain E. P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.05.2009; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Clinical trials; Drugs; Patients; Peer review; Pharmacists; Quality control; Canada
• ISSN: 1715-1635; 1913-701X
• DOI: 10.3821/1913-701X-142.3.112

It is important for the pharmacist and his/her clients to understand that research journals can only publish the results of research as it was conducted after a substantial amount of statistical, biological and medical planning. Proposals to test new pharmaceuticals are screened outside the industry, often by expert ethics review boards in the institutions that have been contracted to undertake the trials. A clinical trial by its very definition is undertaken when the investigators do not know the outcome, but have a reasonable expectation that the efficacy and safety will be rigorously tested. At each step of the way, there can never be absolute certainty. Professional researchers, no matter their employer, must subject their laboratory and clinical research to peer review because it provides at least a baseline level of assessment that gives credibility to regulatory decisions and health policy. The peer-review process itself provides only a sampling of the best available expert advice and it is important for each person in the chain, from laboratory to patient to politicians, to understand that peer review is like democracy, the best available way of operating by keeping poor-quality research and development away from the public. Blind belief in the practice of peer review is no substitute for careful and non-ideological use of the process that continues to provide the best available foundation for making decisions that affect us all whenever we need the services of health care providers.