December saw four new papers enter into BMJ Open’s top 10 most read articles. In first place is a systematic review of deaths, injuries and permanent disability from rubber and plastic bullets and other projectiles used in crowd-control settings between 1990 and 2017. The authors conclude that rubber/plastic bullets used for crowd control can cause significant morbidity and mortality, and given their inherent inaccuracy, they shouldn’t be used for this purpose.
Also new this month is a study by Jennifer Miller and colleagues who examined the clinical trial transparency of large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and their 2014 FDA-approved drugs. The authors found high levels of transparency overall, although opportunities for improvement remained including the transparency of results from trials that are not conducted in patients, such as trials in healthy volunteers.
Other new entries include a Brazilian study assessing the association between primary health care model/ physician specialisation and hospitalisation for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions (number 6) and a cross-sectional assessment of appropriate methods for assessing mobility function in patients with visual field loss (number 9).
Most read figures are based on pdf downloads and full text views. Abstract views are excluded.