About the Authors

Alessandro Liberati

alesslib@mailbase.it

Affiliations Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy, Centro Cochrane Italiano, Istituto Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Milan, Italy

Douglas G. Altman

Affiliation Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Jennifer Tetzlaff

Affiliation Ottawa Methods Centre, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Cynthia Mulrow

Affiliation Annals of Internal Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Peter C. Gøtzsche

Affiliation The Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark

John P. A. Ioannidis

Affiliation Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece

Mike Clarke

Affiliations UK Cochrane Centre, Oxford, United Kingdom, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

P. J. Devereaux

Affiliation Departments of Medicine, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Jos Kleijnen

Affiliations Kleijnen Systematic Reviews Ltd, York, United Kingdom, School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI), University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

David Moher

Affiliations Ottawa Methods Centre, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Competing Interests

MC's employment is as Director of the UK Cochrane Centre. He is employed by the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust on behalf of the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health Research in England. This is a fixed term contract, the renewal of which is dependent upon the value placed upon his work, that of the UK Cochrane Centre, and of The Cochrane Collaboration more widely by the Department of Health. His work involves the conduct of systematic reviews and the support of the conduct and use of systematic reviews. Therefore, work–such as this manuscript–relating to systematic reviews might have an impact on his employment.

Author Contributions

ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: AL DGA JT CM PCG JPAI MC PJD JK DM. Wrote the first draft of the paper: AL DGA JT JPAI DM. Contributed to the writing of the paper: AL DGA JT CM PCG JPAI MC PJD JK DM. Concept and design of the Explanation and Elaboration statement: AL DGA JT DM. Agree with the recommendations: AL DGA JT CM PCG JPAI MC PJD JK DM.