US Prosecutor Sends Letter to Medical Journal, Alleging Bias
A federal prosecutor sent a letter to a medical journal, asking for answers on how it chooses articles, the journal's publishers have confirmed.
'The American College of Chest Physicians, publishers of the journal CHEST, can confirm that we received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice, and its content was posted online without our knowledge,' a spokeswoman for the college told The Epoch Times in an email on April 21.
'Legal counsel is currently reviewing the DOJ request. Beyond our statement, we have no additional comment at this time.'
The missive, dated April 14, came from Edward Martin, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Martin
He asked Dr. Peter Mazzone, editor-in-chief of CHEST, to answer five questions, including whether the journal accepts articles or essays of competing viewpoints.
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'I am also interested to know if publishers, journals, and organizations with which you work are adjusting their method of acceptance of competing viewpoints,' Martin wrote. 'Are there new norms being developed and offered?'
He asked for a response by May 2.
Martin's office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
The American College of Chest Physicians
The college also said that the journal complies with ethical guidelines and that it respects the journal's editorial independence.
It's not clear if similar letters were sent to any other journals. A spokesperson for PLOS told The Epoch Times in an email that it has not received one. Other journals did not return inquiries.
Several free speech groups decried the letter, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
'The First Amendment couldn't be clearer: A publication's editorial decisions are none of the government's business. Newspaper, blog, medical journal—it doesn't matter. Back off,' the organization
'When a U.S. Attorney wields the power of his office to target medical journals over their content, he isn't doing his job, let alone upholding his constitutional oath. He's abusing his authority to try to chill protected speech.'
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Now, stimulating economic development is the regime's top priority,' Liu said. Sean Lin, assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Feitian College and former U.S. army microbiologist, shares a similar assessment. 'The authorities won't immediately adopt the lockdown measure because they also know that if they implement the strict zero-COVID policy, it will cause a huge backlash from the public,' Lin told The Epoch Times on May 30. 'So the government is now building mobile cabin hospitals or temporary isolation facilities in various regions to quietly take people away. There may not be major changes in policy announced to the public,' he said. The Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times reported earlier this year that, according to insiders in some parts of China, local governments were building large scale mobile cabin hospitals to quarantine patients with respiratory infections, including COVID-19, such as in Urumqi in Xinjiang region and in several provinces. Employees work at a makeshift hospital that will be used for Covid-19 coronavirus patients in Guangzhou, in China's eastern Guangdong province on April 11, 2022. (Photo by AFP) / China OUT Lin said that some places may have adopted measures to let people stay at home for quarantine 'but it will not turn into a large-scale policy unless the regime is unstable and the authorities have to take such measures. It has not reached that point yet.' The China CDC has yet to release its COVID-19 data for May but did update its weekly influenza report, in which the number of infections increased significantly this week. According to the weekly influenza report for epidemiological week 21 (May 19 to 25), released May 29, a total of eight influenza-like outbreaks have been reported nationwide. In comparison, only one influenza-like outbreak was reported nationwide in week 20 and no influenza-like outbreaks were reported in week 19. 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'The current data does not show that the NB1.8.1 variant has a significant breakthrough in pathogenicity, but it has an almost 1.8-fold improvement in immune escape capability. If it replaces the previous dominant variant that caused COVID-19, it's because its transmission ability is enhanced,' Lin told The Epoch Times. He pointed out that new COVID variants have frequently emerged in the past three years. 'Often new strains quickly replace old ones to be the dominant one. This has become routine.' A person receives a COVID-19 vaccine at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, Calif., on Dec. 22, 2021. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images The World Health Organization (WHO) has As the wave of infections in China continues, However, Lin said there is no sign of a ban of travelers or flights from China by other countries 'because the WHO does not have accurate data from China.' 'According to the current monitoring of countries around the world, there has not been a rapid, large-scale increase in infections like in the one in 2020.' Lin said that because the Chinese regime does not reveal true data, 'it's not possible to track virus spreading routes.' 'This also brings about a greater danger,' he said. 'China often covers up many things until they can no longer be covered up. When they come out, the situation is already quite serious and may be out of control. This is actually the biggest concern.' Luo Ya, Fang Xiao, and Xiong Bin contributed to this report.
