Another bio-medical journal?
In October 2019, The Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity published its inaugural volume one, number one issue, online. This journal purports to cover scientific integrity issues, which may well not be adequately covered in the major biomedical journals. There are reasons to believe, however, that this journal may be more of a threat to scientific integrity than a defender.
Thenew journal describes itself as:
“an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that publishes scholarly debate and original research on scientific practices that impact human and environmental health.”
The editorial board reads like a Who’s Who’s list of “political scientists” who testify a LOT for claimants, and who, when not working for the lawsuit industry, practice occupational and environmental medicine for the redistribution of wealth.
David Egilman, contemnor and frequent plaintiffs’ expert witness in personal injury litigation is editor in chief. Tess Bird, an Egilman protégé, is managing editor. Another Egilman protégé, Susana Rankin Bohme, an associate Director of Research at Corporate Accountability International, also sits on the editorial board. You may be forgiven for believing that this journal will be an Egilman vanity press. The editorial board also includes some high-volume testifying plaintiffs expert witnesses:
Peter Infante, of Peter F. Infante Consulting, LLC, Virginia
Adriane Fugh-Berman, of PharmedOut
Barry Castleman,
William E. Longo, President, MAS, LLC
David Madigan,
Michael R. Harbut,
David Rosner, and
Gerald Markowitz
The journal identifies the Collegium Ramazzini as one of its “partners.” Cue the “Интернационал”!
The first issue of this new journal features a letter[1] from the chief and managing editors, Egilman and Bird, which states wonderfully aspirational goals. The trick will be whether the journal can apply its ethical microscope to all actors in the world of scientific publishing, or whether this new journal is just not another lawsuit industry propaganda outlet.
Egilman’s previous editorial perch was at the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, which was published by Maney Publishing. In 2015, the British company, the Taylor & Francis Group, acquired the IJOEH, with Maney’s other journals, and installed a new editor-in-chief, Andrew Maier. Egilman was cast out; hence the new journal.
Egilman’s new journal will feature among other types of articles, “reviews of legal testimony,” as a scholarly subject. It will be interesting to see whether such reviews assess the testimony of lawsuit industry witnesses, as well as manufacturing industry witnesses.
The new journal requires the use of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) conflict-of-interest and funding disclosure rules, and the use of the ICMJE form. Accordingly, authors “should” report all conflicts, including:
“[a]ny financial contributions, payments, or funding for the present work;
relevant financial activities outside of the submitted work;
any patents or copyrights broadly relevant to the work; and
any relationships that readers could perceive to influence the submitted work.”
There have been only two issues of Egilman’s new journal so far, but I decided to spot check compliance. The first article[2] I saw was by Colin Soskolne, who has testified for the lawsuit industry in a diacetyl case.[3] Oops; no disclosure.
Does Soskolne’s bias show? In the spot-checked article, authors Sokolne and Baur reprise a publication previously part of a 2018 Collegium Ramazzini convocation entitled “Corporate Influence Threatens the Public Health.” The aim of the convocation speakers was to press their claims that [manufacturing] corporate influence undermines scientific integrity through discernible methods, all by “those in the pay of industry”:
- infiltrating journal editorial boards by scientists, with the resulting publication of poorly designed, biased research that foments doubt;
- interfering with “the independent activities of IARC” and similar agencies;
- blocking “much needed” regulation of “hazardous agents,” such as pesticides and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); and
- promulgating causal criteria, which are baseless and which “block workers’ access to legal remedies for occupational illness and premature death.”[4]
There can be little doubt that Soskolne is not interested in messing with “those in the pay of the lawsuit industry.” Soskolne’s biases are fairly clear, clear enough for us to complain that he has not disclosed that he has been compensated by the lawsuit industry, and that he has deep positional conflicts as well. Ironically, he is writing in a journal that itself appears to lack “balance.” The editorial board of the journal for which Soskolne was writing is composed of many of “those in the pay of the lawsuit industry.”
Soskolne is keen to preserve the independence of IARC, but that perceived independence has become a sad, sick joke, with the exclusion of most anyone who has had any working relationship with manufacturing industry, while engaging many with deep ties to the lawsuit industry. Soskolne’s assessment of “much needed” regulation ultimately must be evaluated on the facts and data of each putative toxic substance. If the claim of harmful effects is correct, then regulation may well be “much needed.” If the claim is not correct, then regulation will be much “unneeded.” As for promulgating causal criteria, there is no doubt that the Soskolne, along with the editorial board of this new journal, would like to see the abrogation of causal criteria, so that workers have legal remedies ad libitum.
Soskolne and Baur provide their hit list of the methods of obfuscation or of techniques used to undermine science and policy.[5] There is precious little in their list, however, that is not common place among all journals that publish occupational and environmental epidemiology, including the journals that have been captured by the lawsuit industry’s scientists. Soskolne and Baur also provide a catalogue of how lawsuit industry scientists would subvert science and lock in their biased and selective interpretation of data:
- elevate biological plausibility into sufficient basis for causal inference
- conflate species and ignore species differences in order to allow animal studies to suffice for causal inference for humans
- ignore substantial, relevant biological differences in even slight structural differences among various molecules to enable assertions of harm based upon similar molecular structure of a putative toxic substance
Soskolne ends with a quote from the “pink panthers,” two radical, labor historians, both editorial board members of this new journal, and who both have testified many times for the lawsuit industry:
“[A]s a society, we cannot entrust those with self-interest to be the judge and jury of what is and what is not a danger[;] … that can only lead to compromised science, a questionable decisionmaking process, and a potentially polluted world.”[6]
The pink panthers are, of course, correct, but we must understand that self-interest and conflict of interest can be, and are, both ideological, positional, as well as economic.
[1] Tess Bird & David Egilman, “Letter from the Editors: An Introduction to the Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity,” 1 J. Sci. Practice & Integrity 1 (2019).
[2] Colin Soskolne & Xaver Baur, “How Corporate Influence Continues to Undermine the Public’s Health,” 1 J. Sci. Practice & Integrity 1 (2019), available at DOI: 10.35122/jospi.2019.878137 [cited as Soskolne & Baur]
[3] See Watson v. Dillon Companies, 797 F. Supp. 2d 1138 (D. Colo. 2011) (addressing Soskolne’s testimony).
[4] Soskolne & Baur at 1-2.
[5] Soskolne & Baur at 3.
[6] Soskolne & Baur at 4, quoting from Gerald Markowitz & David Rosner, “Monsanto, PCBs, and the creation of a ‘world-wide ecological problem’,” 39 J. Pub. Health Policy 463 (2018).
