In this article, The Scientist reveals a curious and probably unique story. Two years ago, a researcher at Brown University submitted a paper to a scientific medicine journal. Then he received a note from the editor saying that his paper would not interest the journal readers. Thinking that his article was unfairly rejected before peer review, he decided to publish a two-page ad with the contents of his paper in the same journal. He even asked readers if they thought the contents interesting and received 33 positive replies. Read more before telling me what you think and if you've heard about a similar story.
First, here are the facts, as described by The Scientist.
Two years ago, David Egilman submitted an editorial to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM) that critiqued a 2003 Dow-funded paper in Texas Medicine that said 11 cases of mesothelioma among Dow workers exposed to asbestos did not "suggest an occupational etiology" -- even though mesothelioma typically strikes only 1 to 2 people per million, Egilman said.
He received an E-mail with comments from editor Paul Brandt-Rauf, who said the material was "not likely to be a high priority for the majority of JOEM readers."
Egilman told The Scientist he believed the article was rejected unfairly, and he wanted to "see what would happen" if he submitted the rejected paper as an advertisement. When he did, it was published in its entirety as a two-page ad in JOEM, along with his survey asking if readers believed this material was a "priority" to them. Egilman said he chose to publish the paper as an advertisement in JOEM, rather than get it peer reviewed at another journal, because he became more interested in finding out if the paper was interesting to JOEM readers.
MR. BLAKE,—I received your letter just as I was rushing to Fire Island beach to recover what remained of Margaret Fuller, and read it on the way. That event and its train, as much as anything, have prevented my answering it before. It is wisest to speak when you are spoken to. I will now endeavor to reply, at the risk of having nothing to say.
I find that actual events, notwithstanding the singular prominence which we all allow them, are far less real than the creations of my imagination. They are truly visionary and insignificant,—all that we commonly call life and death,—and affect me less than my dreams. This petty stream which from time to time swells and carries away the mills and bridges of our habitual life, and that mightier stream or ocean on which we securely float,—what makes the difference between them? I have in my pocket a button which I ripped off the coat of the Marquis of Ossoli, on the seashore, the other day. Held up, it intercepts the light,—an actual button,—and yet all the life that it is connected with is less substantial to me, and interests me less, than my faintest dream. Our thoughts are the epochs in our lives: all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
Of course, publishing a scientific article as an ad raises some issues. If it's an ad, what is it trying to sell? The author or his ideas?
Then, there is the question of the respective roles of editing and advertising. The JOEM's editor, Brandt-Rauf, said he would have cancel the ad if he had seen it. But on what grounds? Should he be involved in this kind of decision?
Lee Friedman, director of the Social Policy Research Institute in Illinois, cited a 2002 study in the journal Science and Engineering Ethics showing that 42% of the editors of 33 medical journals owned by professional associations said they had recently received pressure from the association's leadership over content.
Furthermore, editors are not supposed to be able to veto ads, Friedman added. At many major biomedical journals, such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, editors are "blinded" to which ads are going into which issue, to separate editorial from advertising.
I'm often amazed by the creativity of scientists, but do you think this one went too far? Imagine what would happen if anyone could post his "research" in an ad published by New Scientist or Nature. Tell me what you think.
One must always be aware, to notice—even though the cost of noticing is to become responsible.
—Thylias Moss, African American poet. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal (May 12, 1994)
Sources: Alison McCook, The Scientist, April 29, 2005; and various websites
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Medicine
Miscellaneous
Science.