Influence

Rather than dwelling on the debate of being politically neutral, let me share with you an old article written by Jerome Kassirer, formerly the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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When Dr. E. Ratcliffe Anderson, the American Medical Association's executive vice president, announced on January 15, 1999, that he had fired the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), he said that an important factor in his decision was the publication of a research article ... had been advanced ... ahead of schedule with the intent of influencing a major political debate ...

... In my view, a medical journal should not be a dusty archive of clinical studies and review articles, but a lively forum for exposure and discussion of important issues that involve, even indirectly, health and medicine. Articles on ethics, legal issues, health policy, human rights, and health economics published in a respected medical journal can have a bearing on ongoing political decision making at the state, national, and international level. Because of the enormous range of issues that are brought to the attention of medical editors daily, they have a unique opportunity to contribute to such debates ...

... Editors should be sufficiently humble to appreciate that what we write or publish may have limited influence on political debates. Usually, we have little idea of the effect. Nonetheless, I believe that medical editors have an obligation to publish not only articles that are well reasoned, informative, and carefully reviewed, but also ones that are sufficiently timely to contribute to the development of public policy.

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University professors should think the same.

Go read Kassirer JP. Should Medical Journals Try to Influence Political Debates? N Engl J Med 1999; 340: 466-467.