• Thebmj.com at 20—This week marks an important birthday for thebmj.com which has been online for 20 years. Continuing to embrace progress in multimedia, you can read the related editorial from our digital and deputy editors, listen to a podcast interview with Richard Smith, former editor-in-chief, explaining why The BMJ was an early adopter amongst journals in having an online presence, or even browse an interactive infographic charting the timeline from 1995 to now. And once you have, you can tweet, blog, share, or send your rapid response to us.
• However, we should not rest on our victories. Margaret McCartney states in her latest column, “the entire construct of contemporary medical publishing is unfair and unsustainable.” Critical of the peer review process, the revenue generated from the pharmaceutical industry, and how research is shared she offers a strong stance on the world of medical journals and where improvements should be made.
• Strong opinions continue in our latest head to head: Are clinical trial units (CTUs) essential for a successful trial? That is the question of posed to M S Gohel and Ian Chetter. Gohel argues yes, to ensure proper support, ethics, and safety of clinical trials. Chetter proposes CTUs are not essential, although the conduct of sound methodological trials is. He argues that the barriers to trials being conducted are not all overcome by CTUs, which in themselves can be costly. In a timely letter to the editor, Aneel Banghu and colleagues also call on the surgical royal colleges, among others, to support surgical trainees in becoming competent in trial recruitment to improve engagement at a local level.
• In a personal view, James JH Rucker gives his opinion on why it is important to downgrade psychedelic drugs in order to remove the barriers of high licencing fees and improve availability of these medications for clinical research. Someone likely to sympathise with that view is also the interviewee of The BMJ confidential this week, Professor David Nutt.
Emma Parish, editorial registrar, The BMJ.