Following a historic purge of state scientific agencies, political control over federal research funding and interference in university operations, the Trump administration is now targeting scientific literature. Since late April, several academic journals reported receiving probing letters from Edward R. Martin, the federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia and a loyal supporter of the 47th president of the United States. The journals Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) and the Journal of Health and Pollution (JHP), both focused on health-environment issues and published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) – a federally run institute – announced on April 23 that they had suspended the acceptance of research articles and studies submitted for publication "due to recent changes in operational resources" allocated to them.
The journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, published by a US-based scholarly society, is the latest to confirm in the American press that it received Martin's letter. Editors of the journal Chest and the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), one of the most influential biomedical research journals, were also recipients of this letter. It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like [yours] are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates," wrote Martin. "The public has certain expectations and you have certain responsibilities," the letter adds.
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