The Wrong Tool to Fix Woke Science Journals
This article is reprinted with permission from Evolution News.
The editors of medical journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet are ruining the once venerable reputations of their publications by continually publishing hard-left-wing polemics about controversial political issues — such as race relations, gun regulation, and climate change — in the guise of deeming them matters of public health.
These woke publications also repeatedly advocate about highly contestable health issues — such as insisting that so-called gender-affirming care is medically necessary and the scientifically settled means of treating gender-confused children.
Political and cultural advocacy in these publications is sometimes so strident that editors seem almost more invested in ideological advocacy and promoting woke narratives than publishing scientifically enlightening papers. That’s self-destructive because it corrodes trust in the objectivity and expertise of the publications and calls into question whether well-documented papers that cut against the ideological grain would be published at all.
Why it matters
This matters because these publications still hold great sway over the creation of public policy. That is why their ideological biases should be exposed continually in publications such as this one, in the perhaps vain hope that editors will be persuaded to return to a more objective approach to leading medical discourse.
But now, the Department of Justice is getting involved. From a New York Times story:
A federal prosecutor in Washington has contacted The New England Journal of Medicine, considered the world’s most prestigious medical journal, with questions that suggested without evidence that it was biased against certain views and influenced by external pressures.
Dr. Eric Rubin, the editor in chief of N.E.J.M., described the letter as “vaguely threatening” in an interview with the New York Times.
At least three other journals have received similar letters from Edward Martin Jr., a Republican activist serving as interim U.S. attorney in Washington. Mr. Martin has been criticized for using his office to target opponents of the administration.
No. The government has no business pressuring medical journals about their content — no matter how biased. These are private publications. The First Amendment applies here. The editors and publishers have every right to destroy their journals’ reputations without fear of being investigated. The DOJ should back off immediately.
