War and scientific output moving beyond war.
War has resulted in devastating effects on health throughout human history [1]. Like a cancer, it destroys the normal functions of the society, spreads rapidly leaving destruction in its wake, and is the most serious threat to millions of lives. The effect of war on scientific output may also be huge. It can be precisely measured by changes in the number of papers from affected areas published in the peer-reviewed scientific journals indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) [2]. We have recently shown that the scientific output from a country at war in its own territory was drastically reduced [3,4]. These data parallel the human tragedies as well. The purpose of this study was to assess the damage of the civil war, the United Nations (UN) sanctions, and NATO military interventions during the forceful disintegration of the former Yugoslavia on scientific output as measured by changes in the number of publications indexed in the SCI from two of the cities that were affected, Sarajevo and Novi Sad. Also, this study set out to follow a recovery of such damage in the postwar period. Methods and Results