Membership of professional organisations
Biotext staff are active in the Australian Science Communicators, Australasian Medical Writers Association (AMWA), and the Canberra or Queensland Society of Editors. Janet has held committee positions in AMWA and the Canberra Society of Editors. In 2004, she was the ACT representative on the Council of Australian Societies of Editors national Accreditation Working Group. In the same year (2004), she was a member of the organising committee for a joint ASC/AMWA national conference. Hilary Cadman was the Professional Development Program coordinator for AMWA (2004–06) and Malini Devadas was the secretary (2004–06). An Van den Borre is a member of the Australian Society of Indexers.
Hilary and Janet are both members of the Board of Editors of the Life Sciences (USA); An and Janet are members of the European Association of Science Editors; and Janet is a member of the European Medical Writers Association.
Communicating with the public on science issues
Over the years, Janet has presented a number of talks and papers about engaging with the public on emerging issues in scientific research, such as genetically modified food and human embryo research.
In 2005, she collaborated with Barbara Nicholas, a bioethicist from New Zealand, to review international initiatives to promote public engagement in the development and oversight of emerging scientific technologies, as a background paper for government committees and expert groups who undertake public consultation on bioethical and emerging science issues.
See their paper, Review of public engagement in the development and oversight of emerging technologies (‘science and society’)
Evidence-based environmental management
Over the past few years, Janet Salisbury has been developing the idea that the principles of 'evidence-based medicine' could also be applied to environmental management.
In 1972, British epidemiologist Archie Cochrane drew attention to the collective ignorance of health professionals about the effects of health care (Cochrane 1972). He recognised that many treatment-related decisions were not based on reliable reviews of the available evidence but on an ad hoc selection of information from the vast scientific literature, expert opinion and trial and error. These same words could be used today to describe environmental management decisions and it may be time for environmental scientists to follow the example of the 'Cochrane Collaboration' in healthcare to collate and critically assess all the available evidence for environmental management.
In 2002, Janet joined with Ioan Fazey of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Science at the ANU to explore this idea further and in June that year they cohosted a symposium on the subject. Ioan and Janet then futher developed the ideas from the symposium and from Ioan's PhD work to write a journal article, which was published in Environmental Conservation in 2004 (see third link below).
The environment goes to the doctor but is the treatment evidence based?
Discussion paper prepared by Janet Salisbury, May 2001
Evidence-based environmental management: What can medicine and public health tell us?
Report of symposium, ANU, June 2002
Can methods applied in medicine be used to summarize and disseminate conservation research?
Abstract of paper published in Environmental Conservation, 2004
The nature and role of experiential knowledge for environmental conservation
Abstract of paper published in Environmental Conservation, 2006
Antibiotic resistance risk analysis
After her involvement with the Joint Expert Technical Advisory Committee on Antibiotic Resistance (JETACAR), Janet Salisbury joined with committee members, Terry Nicholls and John Turnidge, Canadian food microbiologist Anna Lammerding and Mike Nunn from Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry — Australia (AFFA) to write a risk analysis framework for assessing the risks of antibiotic use in food-producing animals. The paper appeared in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents:
Salisbury JG, Nicholls TJ, Lammerding AM, Turnidge J and Nunn MJ (2006). A risk analysis framework for the long-term management of antibiotic resistance in food-producing animals. International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents 20:153–164