I am sorry that you consider me a censor or as someone that scares you.  As I
wrote originally, it was not the conclusions of the article taken in and of
themselves which caused Dr. Anderson to act. The fact simply is that the article
interjected the Journal into a political debate that a scientific medical
journal has no reason to take part in.

If you owned the BMJ, would you expect the editor of it to take a stance on
either side about whether your Prime Minister lied to a court of law or
obstructed justice in a case that revolved around the definition of a sexual act
just becuase a researcher had data that showed a group of college age students 8
years ago felt that the same acts he committed were or were not sex??  Why would
the BMJ take a position on the issue that is so far outside of its expertise??
Would you agree that this data is closer to a suped-up Gallop poll than a
scientifically or medically significant paper??  As an answer to your question
-- yes, it would have been just as inappropriate to print an article at this
time which stated that 100% of the students considered oral sex as "sex."
Either way, it's just a debate that the Journal does not need to take a side in.

Squelching free speech and setting (and living within) publishing priorities for
a medical journal are very different types of acts.  I believe that Dr. Anderson
was correct in deciding that Dr. Lundberg had egregiously stepped outside of the
bounds of the publishing priorities of JAMA and that his act threatened the
integrity and credibility of the Journal.  As an individual, Dr. Lundberg can
believe and speak about any political issue that he wants to -- but in his role
as editor of the Journal and within the Journal itself, I feel that he had a
higher duty to uphold in this case and should have remained simply silent within
the Journal regarding the President's impeachment trial.

As I'm sure that this issue is beginning to put many on this listserve to sleep,
I will in the future respond to any comments made about this issue directly to
the individual who sends a message.  I thank all of you for your time and
consideration of the issues that I've laid in front of you.  I sincerely hope
that this issue will not keep any of you or your colleagues from submitting
articles to the Journal.  Also, we are beginning the search process for a new
editor of JAMA in the near future.  If any of you have any names that you would
like forwarded on to the search committee, please send them to me with some
background.  Thank you.

Andrew Thomas, MD
AMA Board of Trustees

Dave Sackett wrote:

> it was good to hear from a trustee of the AMA, explaining the thought
> processes at that level.  thanks, dr thomas.
>
> as i understand his note, content (which is irrelevant to folks like me
> who revere freedom of expression [in words, music, art, peotry] far more
> important than the discomfort of those who are offended by it), viewed
> from the point-of-view of the censor, is key.
>
> that fundamental disagreement is why i can never agree with dr. thomas
> about the appropriateness of his behaviour this case, and why so many of
> the respondents to the BMJ website see no humanly important difference
> between his act and those of censors in left- or right-wing dictatorships
> (who have grown wise to the fact that you don't need to kill a guy to shut
> him up).
>
> dr. thomas, folks like you scare the hell out of me!
>
> can i close with a question for dr thomas and others who justify his
> actions in this way?  what if the survey documented that the overwhelming
> majority of students regarded fellatio as not only sexual intercourse,
> but as degrading to women.  would you still have fired george lundberg
> before the article appeared and without discussing your decision with
> JAMA's editorial board?
>
> cheers
> dls
>
> ............................................................................
> Prof David L. Sackett
> Director, NHS R&D Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine
> Consultant in Medicine                    Editor, Evidence-Based Medicine
> Nuffield Department of Medicine,          University of Oxford
> Level 5, John Radcliffe Hospital,         Oxford OX3 9DU, England
> Phone: +44-(0)1865-221320                 Fax:  +44-(0)1865 222901
> Email: [log in to unmask]          WWW:  http://cebm.jr2.ox.ac.uk
> ............................................................................



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