People hold signs at the Stand Up for Science rally in Chicago to protest the Trump administration's science policies and federal job cuts.Nam Y. Huh/AP
The publisher of CHEST, a prestigious, peer-reviewed medical journal focused on respiratory health, received a letter from the Trump administration seeking information about how its editors handle scientific controversies and “competing viewpoints.” Some medical professionals see the missive as an attempt to stifle academic freedom.
“It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates,” reads the letter, signed by Ed Martin Jr., acting US attorney for DC. Some journals, the letter vaguely claims, “have a position for which they are advocating” due to “advertisement” or “sponsorship.” “The public has certain expectations and you have certain responsibilities.” (The letter was first posted online by Dr. Eric Reinhart, a Chicago-based clinician, and first reported by MedPage Today.)
Some medical professionals see the missive as an attempt to stifle academic freedom.
It’s unclear why CHEST was targeted or what “scientific debates” the administration hopes to investigate. Laura DiMasi, a spokesperson for the journal, confirmed in an email to Mother Jones that it “received a letter from the US Department of Justice, and its content was posted online without our knowledge.” She shared that “legal counsel is currently reviewing the DOJ request” but declined to comment further. According to MedPage Today, at least two other journals have received similar letters.
In the April 14 letter, Martin asks CHEST’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Peter Mazzone, to answer five questions, including how the journal assesses its responsibility to “protect the public from misinformation,” whether it accepts articles from “competing viewpoints,” and how it “handle[s] allegations” that authors “may have misled their readers.”
In a statement Friday, the American College of Chest Physicians, which publishes CHEST, defended its editorial practices. “In its 90-year history, CHEST has published numerous articles that were breakthroughs in scientific research and clinical treatment, advancing the medical profession and improving the health and well-being of patients worldwide,” the statement reads. The journal publishes “review articles, offers commentaries, and fosters debate on emerging controversies.”
Reading between the lines, some academics interpreted the letter as a thinly veiled threat. “I’m jealous of whichever lawyer gets to write the response,” Charlotte Garden, a University of Minnesota Law School professor, wrote on Bluesky.
Others saw it as an attempt to dictate how academic journals operate. As Dr. Adam Gaffney, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, told MedPage Today, it “should send a chill down the spine of scientists and physicians.”
