Audit Or Research?

Editor ‐ The anonymous attack on the integrity of Acupuncture In Medicine reported in the June 2004 issue was both surprising and worrying, 1 particularly when taken in conjunction with the BMJ of 31 July which arrived on my doorstep soon after our own Journal. The BMJ issue was the last of Dr Richard Smith, their editor retiring after 25 years. He chose to devote much of his final issue to articles complaining of the increasing and unnecessary assault course to be run for ethical committee approval in even the most simple of medical research projects. 2 The current 68 page application form is reputed to take over 40 hours to complete (a full working week for a medical secretary) at considerable financial cost. 3 The BMJ contributors were clearly of the opinion that the administrative burden was stifling research, and their leader writer noted that since audit studies are still relatively unregulated ‘much research is now conveniently rebadged as audit’. 4