https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r253
"The news that on 31 January 2025 the Trump administration instructed
scientists employed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
to withdraw or retract articles from medical and science journals is sinister
and ludicrous. The instruction, from Sam Posner, the CDC’s associate director
for science, said that the order was for publications that included “forbidden
terms” such as gender, transgender, LGBT, or transsexual, and applies to
submissions that have not been accepted yet and accepted papers that have not
yet been published.
This move is part of the Trump government’s attempt to purge mentions of
“gender.” The instruction follows days of vanishing CDC websites and datasets
related to a range of vital health topics including immunisation, race or
ethnic diversity, contraception, sexually transmitted infections and HIV
treatment, and sexual and reproductive healthcare. It is unclear if and when
these webpages and datasets will be restored, but if they do reappear, they
will likely be sanitised. Clinicians, researchers, and patients will be harmed
by the muzzling and removal of critical health information and data. Sex and
gender data are highly relevant and essential for understanding differences in
populations and among individuals—in their health experiences, treatment
response, and outcomes.
The email to CDC scientists contained a script for employees to use when
contacting journals that reads: “Consistent with the President’s Executive
Order titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring
Biological Truth to the Federal Government, I am removing myself as a coauthor
from this submission.” If all authors were CDC scientists, they were instructed
to “retract” submitted articles before publication.
This is not how it works. Medically relevant terminology and inclusive language
follow evidence based reporting standards or are matters of individual journal
style and policy. They do not follow political orders. Similarly, co-authors
cannot simply scrub themselves from articles. Authorship gives credit and
accountability for the work, and an article’s list of authors does not ghost
contributors. If authors wish to withdraw submissions under review at a
journal, this process is feasible should all of their co-authors agree.
However, if somebody who merits inclusion in the authorship group of an article
requests to be removed, even with the approval of the co-authors, this is a
breach of publication ethics.
Authors are entitled to withdraw a paper from consideration at any point before
publication in a journal, but those data should still be published and not
censored. Guidelines exist for reporting on sex and gender, and these best
practices are adhered to by researchers and journals.
Medical journals, including
The BMJ, do not retract published articles on
demand. We will not retract published articles on request by an author on the
basis that they contain so-called banned words. Retraction occurs in
circumstances where clear evidence exists of major errors, data fabrication, or
falsification that compromise the reliability of the research findings. It is
not a matter of author request.
Publication ethics and professional standards define the work of medical
journals, editors, and researchers. These are safeguards of best scientific
practice and integrity—and will not yield to bad practice like gag orders,
suppression, and authoritarian whims."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
