New England Journal of Medicine gets swept up in U.S. attorney inquiry into alleged bias
Targeting of prestigious publication - and perhaps others - could signal a coming clash between journals and the Trump administration
By Anil Oza April 23, 2025
Last week, at least one scientific journal received a letter from a top U.S. attorney asking it to respond to alleged bias. Now, one of the world's leading medical journals, has received a similar inquiry as well.
The New England Journal of Medicine's editor in chief, Eric Rubin, received a letter from the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Edward R. Martin Jr. in recent days in which the prosecutor asked six questions, largely about alleged bias in the decision to publish unspecified content. The journal told STAT it responded by affirming its commitment to evidence-based recommendations and editorial independence.
"As practicing physicians, our editors recognize our responsibility to doctors and patients. We use rigorous peer review and editorial processes to ensure the objectivity and reliability of the research we publish," Rubin wrote in his response. "We support the editorial independence of medical journals and their First Amendment rights to free expression. The Journal actively fosters scholarly scientific dialogue and remains steadfast in its commitment to supporting authors, readers, and patients."
It is unclear how many journals have received such letters, or why they were being targeted. But the fact that two, very dissimilar publications - the first publicly known to receive such a letter, also from Martin, was CHEST, which publishes research on diseases like asthma, chest infections, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder - suggests that similar missives may have been delivered to a large number of scientific journals. If so, it may point to a major clash brewing between academic publishers and a U.S. attorney with close ties to President Trump.
Experts who spoke with STAT have said they worry the letters could have a chilling effect on academic journals.
"As a former editor in chief, I would think this is an attempt to intimidate journals into changing their approach and to be overly concerned about 'alternative perspectives' even when they are not scientifically based. It wouldn't have worked with me and I hope it won't work for the editors in chief who received them," said Jeremy Berg, who was editor in chief of the prestigious journal Science.
Any move by the government to challenge the New England Journal of Medicine would align with statements from other Trump administration officials, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who floated the idea of prosecuting journals, including NEJM, before taking office. He has accused journals of misrepresenting scientific research.
"I'm going to litigate against you under the racketeering laws, under the general tort laws," he said on a podcast last year. "I'm going to find a way to sue you unless you come up with a plan right now to show how you're going to start publishing real science and stop retracting the real science and publishing the fake pharmaceutical science by these phony industry mercenaries, scientists."
But some scientists said the U.S. attorney letter misunderstands the way that journals operate. "There is a notion that the New England Journal has a single perspective or has a viewpoint the way that one might argue that the editorial board of a small newspaper might," said Carl Bergstrom, a biologist who studies misinformation. "But this is laughable because of course it is just a collection of these communications that are deemed worthy to publish not by the editors themselves but by peer reviewers who were drawn from the community that the journal serves."
The letters could also serve to send a message to academic publishers to avoid crossing the Trump administration, and push them to publish viewpoints more favorable to the current administration. "I think part of what's going on is there is a substantial resentment that they've not been able to get traction for these heterodox ideas within the scientific community itself and so they are willing to tear down the fabric of science in order to try to impose these ideas on the community," Bergstrom said. "So they end up doing things like this that are profoundly anti-scientific."
Other major journals, including Science and JAMA, declined to comment when asked by STAT whether they had received similar letters. The Department of Justice also did not respond to requests for comment. The Lancet and the Public Library of Science said they had not received the letter.
CHEST and NEJM were both told that responses were expected by May 2.
"It seems that these letters are intended to bully journals and universities away from scholarly investigations of epidemiology and health services operations," said Jack Iwashyna, a critical care physician at Johns Hopkins University who has published in both NEJM and CHEST. "Instead, we need to actively understand what works well in our health care system, and which patients need better care, and which systems need to improve. Ignorance and political interference only serve disease and those who would profit from it."
New England Journal of Medicine gets swept up in U.S. attorney inquiry
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Denise Moody
The Lundquist Institute
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