Richard Smith (editor)

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Richard Smith is a former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and former chief executive of the BMJ Publishing group. He worked for the medical journal for twenty-five years, from 1979 to 2004, the last thirteen as editor. He resigned in 2004, at age 52, to work for the American UnitedHealth Group, the largest healthcare company in the United States, which is expanding operations in the United Kingdom; Dr. Smith is now the chief executive for the company's European operations, United Healthcare Europe. He is on the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science, an open access publisher of scientific and medical research.

His brother is comedian Arthur Smith.

[edit] The Trouble with Medical Journals

Smith is the author of the book The Trouble with Medical Journals (2006, ISBN 1-85315-673-6), in which he contends medical journals have become "creatures of the drug industry," rife with fraudulent research and packed with articles ghost written by pharmaceutical companies.[1]