Response: Absence of citations can be valuable clue

✍ Scribed by Swanson, Don R.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 332 KB
• Volume: 40
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-8231
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(198905)40:3<152::aid-asi4>3.0.co;2-h

✦ Synopsis

In the article "Two Medical Literatures that are Logically but not Bibliographically

Connected," I showed how two noninteracting sets of articles together implied that dietary fish oil might benefit Raynaud patients, a hypothesis not previously proposed (JASIS 38(4) 228-233, 1987.) The complete medical argument was published in the biomedical literature in 1986. A controlled clinical trial of dietary fish oil in 32 Raynaud patients was recently reported by researchers at the Albany Medical College (Ralph Digiacomo, Joel Kremer, Dhiraj Shah, Arthritis and Rheumatism 31(4) [Suppl], S34, April, 1988.) The authors conclude that "fish-oil supplements in patients with Raynaud's may improve tolerance to cold exposure and delay the onset of vasospasm."

This report, therefore, supports the main point of the earlier analysis, that logically related noninteractive literatures are potential sources of new knowledge.