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Scientific American
01-05-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
The Scary Implications of U.S. Government Attacks on Medical Journals
In April, I decided to make public a leaked letter from the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to the editor-in-chief of CHEST, a leading pulmonology and critical care journal. I did so because the letter represents an authoritarian threat to science, and I knew it wasn't an isolated, bizarre incident. It is a warning sign, another move in a broader campaign to exert control over research, medicine and media. The letter asserts that 'publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates.' It was written by recently appointed acting U.S. attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr., who gives no examples that might demonstrate partisanship; nor does he cite any laws or legal principles to indicate a matter that should concern the U.S. government. Instead, without justification or jurisdiction over a private medical journal based in Illinois, he simply invokes his federal office to demand that CHEST explain if it accepts 'competing viewpoints,' and how it is now developing 'new norms' to adjust its editorial methods in view of its alleged—by Martin—biases. Since I publicly shared this, at least four additional journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, have confirmed receipt of similar letters, according to MedPage Today, STAT News, the New York Times and Science. Aside from Eric Rubin at the NEJM, none of the targeted editors have been willing to go on record, fearing retribution from the Trump administration. It's likely that letters were sent to many more journals; CHEST 's was simply the first to leak. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Why CHEST? It's a specialty outlet—not even among the top 50 medical journals. Is this a keyword-driven campaign like those we've seen at the CDC and NIH? Under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., terms like 'diversity,' 'minority' and 'equity' have been systematically flagged. This has led to elimination of federal positions and programs, cancellation of research grants, and scrubbing of government websites and statistics —all related to these words. A search of CHEST 's archive for 'transgender,' for example, returns 33 hits—articles acknowledging the clinical implications of caring for trans patients (e.g., ventilator settings may need to be adjusted). Add in other Trump-targeted terms like race, disparity, female and disability, and we can see the outlines of a new DOJ-led front in the administration's campaign to target minorities for denial of care, legalized discrimination and bureaucratic erasure. Kennedy has also previously objected to medical journals not publishing studies that support his debunked and baseless theories, such as false claims that vaccines cause autism, declaring a plan to 'create our own journals' to publish such studies. Last year, while running his own presidential campaign, he stated he would take legal action against editors in response: 'I'm going to litigate against you under the racketeering laws, under the general tort laws. I'm going to find a way to sue you unless you come up with a plan right now to show how you're going to start publishing real science.' Kennedy is not a scientist and has no training in medicine. He has not volunteered to submit his claims to the types of critical, anonymized expert reviews that are designed to support scientific rigor at scientific journals. Kennedy frequently makes evidence-free claims on podcasts and television shows and now in government press conferences, regardless of the consequences. However, peer-reviewed journals like CHEST require extensive scrutiny as part of their evaluation process. Outside scientists examine submitted studies for biases, errors, and unsupported claims or conclusions, and authors are required to include statements about conflicts of interest—including reasons for even just the appearance of bias in the eyes of others—and to disclose their funding sources. This is routine procedure at journals, about which Martin's letter indicates he knows strikingly little. We don't know Martin's, Kennedy's or Trump's specific motivations in sending a letter to CHEST, but it is clear that Martin's threat to journals is not a one-off stunt. Like Trump's actions that cut off or threaten federal research funding at Columbia, Harvard and other universities, it appears to be part of a calculated strategy to identify, isolate and intimidate researchers who, and institutions that, acknowledge realities like inequality, social differences and structural violence. American health institutions have long been entangled with state violence: forced sterilizations of Black and Indigenous women, repression of civil rights protesters, collaboration with anti-immigrant policing, the push to categorize queer people as pathological and dangerous, and denial of reproductive and gender-affirming care. These alliances are enabled by a professional culture that rewards compliance and punishes dissent. In that respect, the Trump administration's mounting ideological control over medicine represents not a historical rupture but rather a continuation of sordid legacies. To understand what is now transpiring, it is important to note that Martin has never before been a prosecutor. He has no experience in criminal litigation, appointed to his post to serve political ends. Since taking office, he has hired Michael Caputo —Trump's disgraced first-term COVID spokesman who then infamously accused government scientists of ' sedition '—as an advisor at the U.S. Attorney's Office. The message is clear: this is not about law enforcement. It is about using state power to intimidate scientists and suppress dissent. Against this backdrop, if journal editors refuse to speak out and organize to defend academic freedom, they will not only ultimately fail to protect themselves and their journals. They will also sacrifice targeted communities. When confronted by government intimidation driven by personal ideological agendas instead of the public good, silence is complicity—not neutrality. We must refuse to compromise when the Trump administration comes first for stigmatized and vulnerable groups—such as trans individuals, disabled people, or immigrants they label as 'criminals' —as a means of normalizing state violence and expanding its unconstitutional reach. This is not the time to issue hollow statements condemning the supposed ' politicization of science '—a line that conflates partisan interests with what should be bipartisan political principles upon which rigorous scientific practice, ethical clinical care and genuine public health depend. Science is always already political, and we must organize politically to defend it against authoritarian threats. That requires calling out the Trump administration's intimidation campaign for what it is: a McCarthyite attempt to purge science of inconvenient truths and ethical foundations. The production of knowledge, the allocation of care, and the very questions we ask and answer, are all shaped by systems of power. When medical professionals pretend otherwise, we create a vacuum. And that vacuum is quickly filled by the loudest ideologues and most craven opportunists. To fight back, we need coordinated action and solidarity with those most targeted. And we need to stop pretending that defending science means staying above politics. Provoked by the revelation of Martin's letter, The Lancet —a world-leading, London-based medical journal—has taken on this public responsibility and done what its American counterparts have so far declined to do: published a clear and forceful editorial stance condemning the Trump administration's assault on science, medicine, and public health, and calling for Kennedy's resignation. Other journal editors and health leaders should now join in taking such principled political stands. To do so, they must give up on the naïve fantasy that, if they just keep their heads low enough, they can avoid becoming targets and simply wait out the Trump administration as it destroys essential scientific infrastructure. Martin's letter is a declaration that scientific inquiry is no longer safe unless it aligns with state ideology. If we let that stand, we don't just lose our journals. We lose the right to ask questions that matter—and the ability to care for those most in need.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Government Is Now Threatening Academic Journals
The Trump administration has slashed funding for universities and scientific research. Now, its lackeys appear to be escalating their tactics by menacing academic journals. In a letter sent to the editor of CHEST Journal Peter Mazzone, US attorney for the District of Columbia Edward R. Martin, Jr. — a devout Trump appointee — insinuates that the publication is "partisan," presses it for an explanation on how it handles "misinformation," and asks whether it's accepting of "competing viewpoints." In February, Martin sparked an outcry after he declared himself to be "Trump's lawyer," vowing "to fight to protect his leadership against entities "that refuse to put America first." With anti-vax crackpots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chosen to run this country's public health institutions, and a tide of "anti-woke" sentiment targeting scientists for acknowledging that climate change is real and that trans people exist, it's impossible not to read Martin's letter as a thinly veiled threat: stop being "woke," or face government scrutiny. "The public has certain expectations and you have certain responsibilities," Martin wrote. The letter was shared on social media this week by Eric Reinhart, a political anthropologist. MedPage Today reports that it's learned of at least two author journals receiving similar letters. "A publication's editorial decisions are none of the government's business, whether it's a newspaper or a medical journal," JT Morris, a senior supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told MedPage Today. "When a United States Attorney wields the power of his office to target medical journals because of their content and editorial processes, he isn't doing his job, let alone upholding his constitutional oath," Morris added. "He's abusing his authority to try to chill protected speech." As part of its DOGE-effort to slash federal expenditures, the Trump administration has cut off billions of dollars in financial support for universities, terminated hundreds of research projects funded by the US National Institutes of Health, and cancelled nearly $3 billion in the agency's contracts. It has also frozen every single research grant at the US National Science Foundation, one of the largest funders of basic research in the world, in order to review the grants' language for terms related to DEI. Some of the "woke" or "partisan" stuff that's been kneecapped by the sweeping cuts include cancer and Alzheimer's research. If the draconian measures were intended to be an out-and-out assault on the scientific community, it's working: with the money drying up, some of the nation's top scientists are starting to consider leaving the country. But many are fighting back. In February, publications including the American Journal of Public Health said they would heavily scrutinize papers submitted by government scientists, after the Trump administration carried out a blackout of health administration data and forced CDC scientists to withdraw their work to remove language related to gender. In response to this latest escalation — siccing a US attorney on individual publications — some in the scientific community are calling for solidarity. "It is yet another example of the Trump administration's effort to control academic inquiry and stifle scientific discourse — an administration, it warrants mentioning, that has embraced medical misinformation and pseudoscience to reckless effect," Adam Gaffney, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, told MedPage Today. "Journal editors should join together and publicly renounce this as yet more thinly guised anti-science political blackmail." More on Trump: Real Life Is Now "Don't Look Up" as Trump Pulls Support for Any Research About the Climate
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
U.S. attorney demands scientific journal explain how it ensures 'viewpoint diversity'
The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sent a letter this week to the editor of a scientific journal for chest doctors, implying that the journal was partisan and asking a series of questions about how the publication protects the public from misinformation, whether it included competing viewpoints and whether it was influenced by funders or advertisers. 'It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates,' the letter from acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin stated, before noting that 'you have certain responsibilities.' The letter caught the attention of First Amendment groups and some scientists, who raised concerns that it was designed to suppress academic and scientific freedom. 'It's really unusual when you see a U.S. Attorney from the Distinct of Columbia sending a letter to a publication based in Illinois inquiring about their editorial practices, in particular, a journal from a medical organization,' said JT Morris, a senior supervising attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). 'That screams of a government official going after a publication because it disagrees with what the publication is saying.' FIRE, a nonprofit civil liberties groups, has been critical of Martin, saying he's threatened "to go after speakers critical of Department of Government Efficiency" and Elon Musk. Scientific journals build a base of what scientists understand about their fields and allow researchers to share new findings with colleagues. Before publication, credible scientific journals review submissions and send studies to outside researchers to check for errors or problematic reasoning, which is why they are called peer-reviewed. The Trump administration has made dramatic funding and personnel cuts at federal science and medical organizations, including the Health and Human Services Department and the National Institutes of Health. Some groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have said the administration has targeted disfavored research topics for cuts. The administration has also made cuts at academic institutions over ideology, which has put some scientists on alert for government influence at independent journals. The office of the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia did not respond to an NBC News request for comment about the letter or its purpose. The letter was originally posted on X by Dr. Eric Reinhart, a clinician, political anthropologist and social psychiatrist based in Chicago. Reinhart described the letter, in his post on X, as designed to 'intimidate' and called it 'fascist tactics.' Laura DiMasi, a communications specialist with the CHEST Journal's publisher, the American College of Chest Physicians, confirmed that the organization had received the letter posted by Reinhart. 'Its content was posted online without our knowledge,' DiMasi said. 'Legal counsel is currently reviewing the DOJ request.' The American College of Chest Physicians is a professional group with about 22,000 members in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, according to its website. A statement on the publication's website states that CHEST applies 'strict peer review standards to ensure scientific rigor.' 'As the publisher, the American College of Chest Physicians respects and supports the journal's editorial independence,' the statement said. In an interview, Reinhart said he published the letter on X because he hoped to push scientific journal editors, and the broader scientific community, to band together and take a stand against what he viewed as government pressure on publishers. 'My understanding is the journal did not intend to make this public,' Reinhart said, adding that he did not receive a copy of the letter from someone at the journal. 'Our responsibility is to organize with one another and rally a coordinated opposition to this.' NBC News asked two former editors of scientific journals if they had ever received letters from the Department of Justice about their publishing practices, and both said they had not. Jeremy Berg, who was once an editor of the Science family of journals, said he interpreted the letter's message as 'we're watching you.' Michael Eisen, who once edited the biomedical journal eLife, said he didn't know what to make of the letter, though he viewed it as part of the Trump administration's "volley of attacks" on academia, universities and science. 'It's hard to know what it is. What are they doing? I've just never been in this situation of providing information to the Department of Justice about something,' Eisen said, noting that journals often get inquiries from academics about their practices, but not law enforcement. 'This is not an editorial query. This is from an organization that prosecutes crimes. That makes it different.' Berg said scientists were scrambling to understand if the letter was part of a wider inquiry into scientific journals. NBC News contacted leaders of scientific journal families asking whether they had received similar letters. Representatives of PLOS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and the The New England Journal of Medicine said they had not received a similar inquiry. Representatives from Science, Nature and JAMA, the medical journal of the American Medical Association, did not respond to a request for comment. This article was originally published on
NBC News
18-04-2025
- Health
- NBC News
U.S. attorney demands scientific journal explain how it ensures ‘viewpoint diversity'
The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sent a letter this week to the editor of a scientific journal for chest doctors, implying that the journal was partisan and asking a series of questions about how the publication protects the public from misinformation, whether it included competing viewpoints and whether it was influenced by funders or advertisers. 'It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates,' the letter from acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin stated, before noting that 'you have certain responsibilities.' The letter caught the attention of First Amendment groups and some scientists, who raised concerns that it was designed to suppress academic and scientific freedom. 'It's really unusual when you see a U.S. Attorney from the Distinct of Columbia sending a letter to a publication based in Illinois inquiring about their editorial practices, in particular, a journal from a medical organization,' said JT Morris, a senior supervising attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). 'That screams of a government official going after a publication because it disagrees with what the publication is saying.' FIRE, a nonprofit civil liberties groups, has been critical of Martin, saying he's threatened "to go after speakers critical of Department of Government Efficiency" and Elon Musk. Scientific journals build a base of what scientists understand about their fields and allow researchers to share new findings with colleagues. Before publication, credible scientific journals review submissions and send studies to outside researchers to check for errors or problematic reasoning, which is why they are called peer-reviewed. The Trump administration has made dramatic funding and personnel cuts at federal science and medical organizations, including the Health and Human Services Department and the National Institutes of Health. Some groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have said the administration has targeted disfavored research topics for cuts. The administration has also made cuts at academic institutions over ideology, which has put some scientists on alert for government influence at independent journals. The office of the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia did not respond to an NBC News request for comment about the letter or its purpose. The letter was originally posted on X by Dr. Eric Reinhart, a clinician, political anthropologist and social psychiatrist based in Chicago. Reinhart described the letter, in his post on X, as designed to 'intimidate' and called it 'fascist tactics.' Laura DiMasi, a communications specialist with the CHEST Journal's publisher, the American College of Chest Physicians, confirmed that the organization had received the letter posted by Reinhart. 'Its content was posted online without our knowledge,' DiMasi said. 'Legal counsel is currently reviewing the DOJ request.' The American College of Chest Physicians is a professional group with about 22,000 members in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, according to its website. A statement on the publication's website states that CHEST applies 'strict peer review standards to ensure scientific rigor.' 'As the publisher, the American College of Chest Physicians respects and supports the journal's editorial independence,' the statement said. In an interview, Reinhart said he published the letter on X because he hoped to push scientific journal editors, and the broader scientific community, to band together and take a stand against what he viewed as government pressure on publishers. 'My understanding is the journal did not intend to make this public,' Reinhart said, adding that he did not receive a copy of the letter from someone at the journal. 'Our responsibility is to organize with one another and rally a coordinated opposition to this.' NBC News asked two former editors of scientific journals if they had ever received letters from the Department of Justice about their publishing practices, and both said they had not. Jeremy Berg, who was once an editor of the Science family of journals, said he interpreted the letter's message as 'we're watching you.' Michael Eisen, who once edited the biomedical journal eLife, said he didn't know what to make of the letter, though he viewed it as part of the Trump administration's "volley of attacks" on academia, universities and science. 'It's hard to know what it is. What are they doing? I've just never been in this situation of providing information to the Department of Justice about something,' Eisen said, noting that journals often get inquiries from academics about their practices, but not law enforcement. 'This is not an editorial query. This is from an organization that prosecutes crimes. That makes it different.' Berg said scientists were scrambling to understand if the letter was part of a wider inquiry into scientific journals. NBC News contacted leaders of scientific journal families asking whether they had received similar letters. Representatives of PLOS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and the The New England Journal of Medicine said they had not received a similar inquiry.
