Environmental Well being Views, extensively thought-about the premier environmental well being journal, has introduced that it could pause acceptance of latest research for publication, as federal cuts have left its future unsure.
For greater than 50 years, the journal has obtained funding from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being to evaluate research on the well being results of environmental toxins — from “eternally chemical substances” to air air pollution — and publish the analysis freed from cost.
The editors made the choice to halt acceptance of research due to a “insecurity” that contracts for important bills like copy-editing and editorial software program can be renewed after their impending expiration dates, mentioned Joel Kaufman, the journal’s prime editor.
He declined to touch upon the publication’s future prospects.
“If the journal is certainly misplaced, it’s a large loss,” mentioned Jonathan Levy, chair of the division of environmental well being at Boston College. “It’s lowering the flexibility for folks to have good data that can be utilized to make good selections.”
The editor of N.E.J.M. described the letter as “vaguely threatening.” On Tuesday, the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, printed by the American School of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, mentioned that it had obtained such a letter.
Scientific journals have lengthy been a goal of prime well being officers within the Trump administration.
In a e book printed final yr, Dr. Martin A. Makary, the brand new commissioner of the Meals and Drug Administration, accused journal editorial boards of “gate-keeping” and publishing solely data that helps a “groupthink narrative.”
In an interview with the “Dr. Hyman Present” podcast final yr, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s now secretary of well being and human companies, mentioned he deliberate to prosecute medical journals beneath federal anti-corruption legal guidelines.
“I’m going to discover a approach to sue you until you give you a plan proper now to point out the way you’re going to start out publishing actual science,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, the announcement concerning E.H.P. baffled researchers, who identified that the funding cuts appeared to battle with the Trump administration’s acknowledged priorities.
As an example, Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly emphasised the significance of learning the atmosphere’s function in inflicting persistent ailments. The brand new administration has additionally expressed curiosity within the transparency and public accessibility of scientific journals, an space through which E.H.P. has been a trailblazer.
E.H.P. was one of many first “open-access” journals, permitting anybody to learn and not using a subscription. And in contrast to many different open-access journals, which frequently cost researchers 1000’s of {dollars} to publish their work, E.H.P.’s federal help meant scientists from smaller universities might publish with out worrying a couple of price.
“There are a number of layers of irony right here,” Dr. Levy mentioned.
E.H.P. isn’t the one journal caught within the crossfire of funding cuts on the Division of Well being and Human Companies.
A draft funds for the division, obtained by The New York Occasions, proposes axing two journals printed by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention: Rising Infectious Ailments and Stopping Continual Illness. Each are printed freed from cost to authors and readers and are among the many prime journals of their fields.
Andrew Nixon, an H.H.S. spokesman, mentioned “no closing determination has been made” concerning the upcoming funds.
Rising Infectious Ailments, printed month-to-month, supplies cutting-edge reviews on infectious illness threats from all over the world.
It has helped to form preparedness and response to outbreaks, mentioned Jason Kindrachuk, a virologist on the College of Manitoba who has printed analysis on the Marburg and mpox viruses within the journal.
The information “could be very disheartening,” he mentioned.
