Interference with editorial freedom has affected several prominent medical journals and has been well documented in the biomedical literature and the press. However, many other cases of such interference have not been made public or are discussed only anecdotally, privately, or via restricted electronic mailing lists. The experiences of JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) are presented here for the following reasons: there is sufficient literature documenting the relevant events; effective protective oversight mechanisms and governance plans were lacking or insufficient at the time; and the mechanisms for protection of editorial freedom ...
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