medical journals

Editors of many of the world’s top scientific and medical journals are destroying or — better stated, perhaps — have destroyed the public’s trust in scientific and medical leadership because these journals can no longer be deemed objective purveyors of truth.

Nature and its associated science journals (Nature Portfolio), supposedly the most elite of the lot, are among the worst offenders. For example, in 2024 Nature endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in part because of her support for abortion. Nature also endorsed Biden in 2020. To say the least, blatantly engaging in partisan politics is not wise for a supposedly objective science journal.

It isn’t just politics. Ideological bias can also skew what should be scientifically objective studies, in favor of desired conclusions. In 2023, climate scientist Patrick T. Brown admitted in the Free Press to having tailored a paper he had co-written, to erase proper nuance. Why? He believed that Nature would not publish a paper that did not follow “correct” climate narratives all the way down the line. Brown warned that such ideological contamination of the scientific discourse has consequences:

The biases of the editors (and the reviewers they call upon to evaluate submissions) exert a major influence on the collective output of entire fields. They select what gets published from a large pool of entries, and in doing so, they also shape how research is conducted more broadly. Savvy researchers tailor their studies to maximize the likelihood that their work is accepted. I know this because I am one of them.

“Futile care” is a bioethics theory in which doctors are authorized to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment based on their belief about the quality of a patient’s life. It can be cruel — and on occasion, mistaken. Prominent medical journals usually support futile-care theory. But the New England Journal of Medicine just published a contrary column by a compassionate doctor who rejected that approach in order to keep hope alive for his terminally ill patient and her family. The oncologist, Dr. David N. Korones, placed a young terminally ill cancer patient named Zoha in an experimental drug trial. At first all seemed well, then her condition worsened. From, “The Last Dose”: Although the rules of the trial allowed Zoha to remain Read More ›