Table of Contents | January 2007

About This Image

Worldmapper: Resizing the Globe According to Health Inequalities.

The top map of the pair shows the global distribution of physicians, with territory drawn in proportion to the number who work there. There were 7.7 million physicians worldwide in 2004 (source: World Health Organization, World Health Report 2006; http://www.worldmapper.org map 219). The bottom map shows each territory of the world with its area scaled in proportion to the number of infants who died in their first week of life there in the year 2000 (3 million worldwide; source: World Health Organization, World Health Report 2005, annex, table 8; http://www.worldmapper.org map 260). This is a global image of the inverse care law found also within most territories as well as between them. Much else influences where physicians are trained and choose to work and where infants are most likely to die in their first seven days. For instance, the number of working midwives is shown in worldmapper map 215 and the number of births attended in map 4; the incidence of diarrhoea in map 233; and the extent of two measures of world poverty and wealth in worldmapper maps 174 and 169 respectively.

Image Credit: Images taken from Dorling et al.

Editorial

Peer Review in PLoS Medicine

Perspectives

Does Industry Sponsorship Undermine the Integrity of Nutrition Research?

Martijn B Katan

Authors, Ghosts, Damned Lies, and Statisticians

Elizabeth Wager

Parental Family Structure, Helicobacter Pylori, and Gastric Adenocarcinoma

Pagona Lagiou, Dimitrios Trichopoulos

Measles Still Has a Devastating Impact in Unvaccinated Populations

William J Moss

When Is Replacement Feeding Safe for Infants of HIV-Infected Women?

Grace C John-Stewart

Health in Action

Worldmapper: The Human Anatomy of a Small Planet

Danny Dorling

Policy Forums

XDR-TB in South Africa: No Time for Denial or Complacency

Jerome Amir Singh, Ross Upshur, Nesri Padayatchi

The Structure and Function of Research Ethics Committees in Africa: A Case Study

Nancy E Kass, Adnan Ali Hyder, Ademola Ajuwon, John Appiah-Poku, Nicola Barsdorf, Dya Eldin Elsayed, Mantoa Mokhachane, Bavon Mupenda, Paul Ndebele, Godwin Ndossi, Bornwell Sikateyo, Godfrey Tangwa, Paulina Tindana

Research Articles

The Relationship of Previous Training and Experience of Journal Peer Reviewers to Subsequent Review Quality

Michael L Callaham, John Tercier

Relationship between Funding Source and Conclusion among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles

Lenard I Lesser, Cara B Ebbeling, Merrill Goozner, David Wypij, David S Ludwig

Ghost Authorship in Industry-Initiated Randomised Trials

Peter C Gøtzsche, Asbjørn Hróbjartsson, Helle Krogh Johansen, Mette T Haahr, Douglas G Altman, An-Wen Chan

Early-Life Family Structure and Microbially Induced Cancer Risk

Martin J Blaser, Abraham Nomura, James Lee, Grant N Stemmerman, Guillermo I Perez-Perez

MHC Haplotype Matching for Unrelated Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation

Effie W Petersdorf, Mari Malkki, Ted A Gooley, Paul J Martin, Zhen Guo

Prediction of Graft-Versus-Host Disease in Humans by Donor Gene-Expression Profiling

Chantal Baron, Roland Somogyi, Larry D Greller, Vincent Rineau, Peter Wilkinson, Carolyn R Cho, Mark J Cameron, David J Kelvin, Pierre Chagnon, Denis-Claude Roy, Lambert Busque, Rafick-Pierre Sékaly, Claude Perreault

Proteomic Profiling of the Amniotic Fluid to Detect Inflammation, Infection, and Neonatal Sepsis

Catalin S Buhimschi, Vineet Bhandari, Benjamin D Hamar, Mert-Ozan Bahtiyar, Guomao Zhao, Anna K Sfakianaki, Christian M Pettker, Lissa Magloire, Edmund Funai, Errol R Norwitz, Michael Paidas, Joshua A Copel, Carl P Weiner, Charles J Lockwood, Irina A Buhimschi

Modeling the Worldwide Spread of Pandemic Influenza: Baseline Case and Containment Interventions

Vittoria Colizza, Alain Barrat, Marc Barthelemy, Alain-Jacques Valleron, Alessandro Vespignani

Antiviral Resistance and the Control of Pandemic Influenza

Marc Lipsitch, Ted Cohen, Megan Murray, Bruce R Levin

Unacceptably High Mortality Related to Measles Epidemics in Niger, Nigeria, and Chad

R. F Grais, C Dubray, S Gerstl, J. P Guthmann, A Djibo, K. D Nargaye, J Coker, K. P Alberti, A Cochet, C Ihekweazu, N Nathan, L Payne, K Porten, D Sauvageot, B Schimmer, F Fermon, M. E Burny, B. S Hersh, P. J Guerin

Schistosomiasis Mansoni: Novel Chemotherapy Using a Cysteine Protease Inhibitor

Maha-Hamadien Abdulla, Kee-Chong Lim, Mohammed Sajid, James H McKerrow, Conor R Caffrey

Two-Year Morbidity–Mortality and Alternatives to Prolonged Breast-Feeding among Children Born to HIV-Infected Mothers in Côte d'Ivoire

Renaud Becquet, Laurence Bequet, Didier K Ekouevi, Ida Viho, Charlotte Sakarovitch, Patricia Fassinou, Gédéon Bedikou, Marguerite Timite-Konan, François Dabis, Valériane Leroy

A Novel Substrate-Based HIV-1 Protease Inhibitor Drug Resistance Mechanism

Monique Nijhuis, Noortje M van Maarseveen, Stephane Lastere, Pauline Schipper, Eoin Coakley, Bärbel Glass, Mirka Rovenska, Dorien de Jong, Colombe Chappey, Irma W Goedegebuure, Gabrielle Heilek-Snyder, Dominic Dulude, Nick Cammack, Lea Brakier-Gingras, Jan Konvalinka, Neil Parkin, Hans-Georg Kräusslich, Francoise Brun-Vezinet, Charles A. B Boucher

Epidemiology of Tuberculosis in a High HIV Prevalence Population Provided with Enhanced Diagnosis of Symptomatic Disease

Elizabeth L Corbett, Tsitsi Bandason, Yin Bun Cheung, Shungu Munyati, Peter Godfrey-Faussett, Richard Hayes, Gavin Churchyard, Anthony Butterworth, Peter Mason

Tobacco Smoke, Indoor Air Pollution and Tuberculosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Hsien-Ho Lin, Majid Ezzati, Megan Murray

Corrections

Correction: Air Travel and the Spread of Influenza: Important Caveats

Cécile Viboud, Mark A Miller, Bryan T Grenfell, Ottar N Bjørnstad, Lone Simonsen

Correction: Air Travel and the Spread of Influenza: Authors' Reply

John S Brownstein, Kenneth D Mandl, Cecily J Wolfe