US Attorney Martin Pressures at Least 3 Scientific Journals

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Edward R. Martin Jr. sent letters to at least three medical or scientific journals questioning whether they are partisan and various aspects of how they operate.

He wants a response by 2 May 2025.

So far targets include CHEST, a highly regarded medical journal about respiratory diseases and health, and two other journals that have not yet been identified publicly.

Martin asked five questions. These include how the journal

• evaluates its “responsibilities to protect the public from misinformation”
• “clearly articulate[s] to the public when you have certain viewpoints that are influenced by your ongoing relations with supporters, funders, advertisers, and others”
• takes article submissions from “competing viewpoints”
• considers the role of “funding organizations like the National Institutes of Health in the development of submitted articles”
• handles allegations that authors “may have misled their readers”

He also wrote, “I am also interested to know if publishers, journals, and organizations with which you work are adjusting their method of acceptance of competing viewpoints. Are there new norms being developed and offered?”

Without the journal’s knowledge, the letter’s content was posted online in X (formerly Twitter) by Eric Reinhart, MD, of Chicago. Attorneys for CHEST are reviewing it.

JT Morris, who is a senior supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said this is a clear First Amendment rights case. In email to MedPage Today, he wrote:

A publication’s editorial decisions are none of the government’s business, whether it’s a newspaper or a medical journal.

When a United States Attorney wields the power of his office to target medical journals because of their content and editorial processes, he isn’t doing his job, let alone upholding his constitutional oath. He’s abusing his authority to try to chill protected speech.

Like with any bully, the best response is to stand up to them — and that includes officials who try to intimidate Americans into parroting the government’s view. The First Amendment packs a powerful punch, and it has these medical journals’ backs.

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