We are grateful to Dr Wheatley for his comments on the publication of the treatment study with paroxetine, and would like to acknowledge publicly the contribution made by Dr Wheatley and his colleagues within the Feighner Research Institute. We thank all those principal investigators, their research teams and the patients who kindly took part in this investigation.

It is difficult to acknowledge all the clinicians who participate in large multicentre treatment studies, and naturally some investigators will be disappointed when their contribution is not credited as much as that of their colleagues. Ideally, publication plans should be discussed at meetings with potential investigators prior to the start of a study, and then reviewed during the course of the investigation. This is now the policy at SmithKline Beecham, but this study with paroxetine was started before the policy was in place. Due to a change in personnel within SmithKline Beecham, the communication between the sponsoring company and all the participating investigators has been less than optimal, for which we apologise.

In the future, SmithKline Beecham will try to ensure that all the participating investigators are happy with the publication plan before the start of any treatment study. However, the question of contribution to full authorship will remain problematical, for collaborative study groups and journals alike.