Cervical cancer paper (1)

I much regret the upset caused to Joseph Cacciattolo and his Malta Medical Journal editorial team, when The Times journalist published an article on a potentially preventable cancer with a few snippets of statistical information from a Maltese audit study, done in good faith and with the express intention of raising public awareness.

The journalist had asked me for an interview because she was writing an article in a women's magazine (Pink) on a young woman who lost her womb to cervical cancer, and she wished to know whether we had completed the study on Maltese cervical cancer screening reported on, when she interviewed me some two years previously following my letter to this paper about the dangers of sexual promiscuity in the young.

I insisted with the journalist that to mention a few bits of information from this study, she had to state that it was still unpublished, and to acknowledge my co-workers who had done all the tedious research work, which she did.

Scientific papers are not supposed to be sent to more than one peer-reviewed journal, but in important scientific meetings abroad relevant information from submitted and still unpublished work is often illustrated to the audience and sometimes also quoted by invited journalists. I am sure that my good friend Prof. Cacciottolo will appreciate that this journalist's efforts were solely aimed at raising public health care awareness.

While fully accepting responsibility for the irritation caused to Prof. Cacciottolo and his honourable editorial team, I am also fully aware that the Royal College of Pathologists in London, of which I am a longstanding Fellow, insists with its members that it is one of their duties to educate the public on medical matters and to illuminate others how "pathology is the hidden science that saves lives".