In message <[log in to unmask]>, Andrew Thomas
<[log in to unmask]> writes
> 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.
Is it just *that* political debate that a scientific journal has no part
in or *any* political debate? The BMJ, for example, has certainly been
ready to contribute to the political debate about the relationship
between poverty and health and I for one am glad of it. I believe that
scientific medical journals have not merely reason to contribute to
political debate, but the duty to do so in many areas. These include the
involvement of doctors in torture, health effects of war, regulation of
the food industry to name but a few.
>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??
>
The whole point is that it surely wasn't outside of JAMA's expertise. So
far as I can gather (and I'm not partisan in this, just a transatlantic
observer of a strange American ritual, so correct me if I'm wrong!) some
extreme right wing Republicans don't like Bill Clinton because he's too
left wing and doesn't espouse their political or cultural values. Fair
enough, there are politicians I don't like. But they decided to spend
millions of dollars of public money trawling around to see if they could
get rid of him by fair means or foul. All they came up with was some
sexual indiscretions (to which most peoples' reaction is "c'est la
vie!") and he made a clumsy attempt (as which of us wouldn't) to cover
them up, in the course of which he claimed, on oath, that he hadn't had
a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Personally I thought he was
at the least naive to think that oro-genital contact was not evidence of
a sexual relationship, but it is at least relevant that large numbers of
American students apparently agree with him. So he wasn't lying, in the
sense that he believed what he was saying (just as people who claim that
Madonna is a great singer aren't lying).
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that JAMA published this, just as it
would seem reasonable if the BMJ published evidence that British
ministers knew about the risks of BSE but misinformed parliament about
it. And I don't think the editor was "taking a stance". He was just
making public evidence that, among other things, threw light on the
President's strange (to me) assertions about what is and what is not
sex, reducing them to a matter of semantics and cultural values rather
than a "high crime and misdemeanor".
Of course things could be worse - the cigar could turn out to have been
a Havana - that would really upset the Republicans!
Toby
--
Toby Lipman 7, Collingwood Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne. Tel
0191-2811060 (home), 0191-2437000 (surgery)
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