Two weeks ago, former BMJ editor Richard Smith blogged, “Is the New England Journal of Medicine anti-science?” Excerpts:
“I don’t know why the New England Journal of Medicine doesn’t publish electronically all the letters it receives, but I can hypothesise. The Bostonian paragon is unashamedly elitist and committed to excellence and virtue, just like their colleagues in the city teased by Henry James in his novel The Bostonians. Presumably the editors of the journal don’t want to overload their readers with what they see as ill informed criticisms, but want to present them with the quintessence of comment, beautifully edited of course.
But surely this behaviour is anti-science.
…
The editors of the New England Journal of Medicine must think of themselves as superior people (and they are superior to most of us, and certainly to me) capable of distinguishing truth from error, but could they be making a mistake? I urge them to follow the advice of Rudolf Virchow, the great German doctor and intellectual, who insisted that “Everybody is free to make a fool of himself in my journal.”
This week, different BMJ blog, different author, different American journal targeted. Richard Lehman, in his weekly journal review blog, writes:
“Fifteen years ago, JAMA was my favourite journal. Its covers were always beautiful, thanks to M Therese Southgate’s choice of paintings and works of art, and her short essays on each were unpretentious and delightful. The contents then were more clinically relevant than those of the Lancet or NEJM. Subsequently the journal went into gradual decline, which some hoped might be arrested by the arrival of Howard Bauchner as editor two years ago. But this week marks a low point. Howie B has got rid of the art. He has made all the other JAMA journals uniform and subservient to his, which is not the best of them. He has done away with independent statistical analysis for industry-funded research. Fifteen years later, JAMA is by no means my favourite journal, and it seems determined to press on in the wrong direction.”
Then he ends with a compliment:
“Still, it has the best piece in all the journals this week, which is an editorial by Harlan Krumholz on variation in healthcare—a trumpet call to wake up and start sharing decisions with patients. Just do as this guy says and healthcare will be sorted for the rest of the century.”
As a journalist who tries to improve health care journalism by offering constructive criticism to journalists, I think this is great fun observing journal jousting – even though, to be clear, these are journal bloggers offering the criticisms, not journal editors (although, as noted, Richard Smith is a former BMJ editor.) I think it’s healthy. Editors need editors, too.
————————-
Follow us on Facebook, and on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer
https://twitter.com/healthnewsrevu
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Comments are closed.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like