Requiring Standards for Scientific Journals Has Come of Age

Does advertising compromise the issue of peer review audits of journals? In a recent New York 7hrres article, 1 George D. Lundberg, editor of JAJL4-l?re Journal of the American Medical Association (JAM4), was reported to be reluctant to provide information on the ~rformance of peer review. Other journal editors interviewed for the limes article, however, look more favorably on the idea of auditing procedures-not only for researchers, but also for journals and their editorial policies. 1 Perhaps one of the most provocative commentaries on auditing was published in THE SCIENTLW by Andrew Herxheimer,z clinical pharmacologist, Charing Cross Hospitaf and Westminster Medicrd School, Lcmdon, UK. Herxheirner’s article is reprinted here. He wants to know which journals are “quick and efficient” or “slow and erratic. ” Herxheimer’s article has stimulated a great deal of comment in the press 1 as well as at the International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication in Chicago, May 10-12, 1989. Stephen Lock, editor of the British h4edicul Journal; Alfred Yankauer, editor of the American Journal of Public Health; and Lundberg are willing to participate in audits conducted by scientists under accepted ground rules. However, Lundberg may have inadvertently revealed the essential conflict for scientific joumafs that also accept advertising. He would be reluctant, as Times reporter Lawrence K. Altman stated, “because it could provide cruciaf data to rivals that Compte for articles, media attention and ]tJIV 31, 1989 ,.