Guest Editor and Authors Boycott an Elsevier Journal Over Its Rejection of Disputed Article By GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK
Authors writing for a special issue of a journal devoted to the health and environmental impacts of the electronics and semiconductor industries have told the publisher, Elsevier, that they will withhold their articles to protest Elsevier's refusal to publish a paper that deals specifically with IBM.
Joseph LaDou, guest editor of Elsevier's special issue of Clinics in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, said on Friday that the boycott was designed as a show of solidarity with Richard W. Clapp, a professor of environmental health at Boston University, and his co-author, Rebecca A. Johnson, a private consultant.
Mr. Clapp and Ms. Johnson have analyzed data from IBM that suggest that workers at the company's semiconductor plants had a higher risk of dying of cancer than the population as a whole.
The data were supplied to the authors as part of a civil lawsuit against IBM, and the computer company maintains that they have no right to publish any analysis of the information. The company also maintains that their analysis is scientifically flawed (The Chronicle, May 26).
Mr. Clapp contends that IBM did not take the necessary legal steps to keep the information confidential and that he and Ms. Johnson are therefore within their rights to publish an analysis of it. The analysis had passed muster with four peer reviewers.
Earlier this month, Elsevier rejected the article for the special issue, saying it was original research and therefore unsuitable for a journal in the Clinics of North America series, which publishes only review articles (The Chronicle, June 10). A spokesman for Elsevier, a major international publisher of scholarly journals, has said its decision had nothing to do with fears that IBM might pursue legal action against the publisher.
Dr. LaDou, who is also director of the International Center for Occupational Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, said he hoped the boycott would highlight problems with research in his field. Industry already "exerts far too much influence over the practice of occupational and environmental medicine," he said, and "powerful influence over the research conducted and reported by scientists."
The boycott, he said, could "bring attention to the heavy-handed tactics that industry employs to prevent the publication of important scientific discoveries."
Mr. Clapp said he was gratified by the action of the other authors as he pursues publishing options with other journals. He is also working with his lawyers, and those who represented plaintiffs in lawsuits against IBM, to obtain further clarification from the courts that would affirm his right to publish his analysis of the IBM data.
Dr. LaDou and 9 of the 10 authors who were to publish articles in the special issue with Mr. Clapp and Ms. Johnson say they support the idea of withholding their work until Elsevier reconsiders its position, or the Clapp-Johnson article appears in another journal. Once it appears elsewhere, the analysis could be cited in the special issue. (The 10th author has not yet responded to Dr. LaDou's inquiry about the boycott.)
The authors believe that Elsevier's rejection of the Clapp-Johnson article "leaves out an important part of our message to readers," Dr. LaDou said in an e-mail message to Elsevier's J. Heather Cullen, the publishing director overseeing the special issue.
Dr. LaDou also asked Elsevier to return the articles that had already been submitted for the issue, which is scheduled for November.
Ms. Cullen referred questions to Eric Merkel-Sobotta, director of corporate relations for Elsevier, who said: "We are currently communicating constructively with the guest editor on the special issue and hope to have more information next week. We have no further comment at this time."
Meanwhile, Elsevier has sought to parry its critics in another way. In a response to Dr. LaDou on Friday, Ms. Cullen noted that he is also editor of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, a journal that does publish original research. "Perhaps the format of the Clapp-Johnson article is more suitable" for that publication, she said.
Dr. LaDou said the journal does accept articles of that nature. And he said the journal could consider the Clapp-Johnson article, as well as some or all of the others originally intended for the Elsevier publication. But he said that the earliest any could be published would be a year from now, because of existing commitments to other authors.