Rounding Up Scientific Journals

http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=6684&blogid=140


It would have been perfectly appropriate for the journal to have written an editorial expressing its concerns. Instead, it seems the editors may have succumbed to industry pressure to do the wrong thing. The media coverage in the U.S. has been one-sided; criticism of Séralini’s study has been widely covered in mainstream press, while information about the conflicts of interest of critics have remained in the alternative press.

Anecdotally, we have heard several stories of journal editors being pressured by industry to suppress publication of papers that cast a commercial product in a poor light. How often does this intimidation occur? It would be a service for the editors and writers involved to make these stories public. Industry should not be allowed to intimidate medical and scientific journals, and journal editors need to have a united front against industry influence and a unified strategy on how best to combat it.

The retraction of the Séralini study is a black mark on medical publishing, a blow to science, and a win for corporate bullies.