On April 16, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hosted a hearing titled “Academic Malpractice: Examining the Relationship Between Scientific Journals, the Government, and Peer Review.”
{View the hearing here}
In his opening remarks, Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), a medical doctor, stated that the government should not interfere with the ‘…awesome power of academic journals’ underscoring that there is no place for politics or inappropriate influence. He quickly pivoted to the politicized debate about the origins of the Coronavirus, claiming a breakdown of the peer review process during the pandemic. Ranking Member Raul Ruiz (D-CA), also a medical doctor, countered the narrative that senior U.S. government officials – NIH Drs. Fauci and Collins – pressured high-profile scientific journals to downplay or reject the possibility that the pandemic began with a ‘lab leak.’
Holden Thorp, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief of Science Journals, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), provided the only testimony at the hearing. Two other invited witnesses declined to participate, Magdalena Skipper, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief of Nature, and Richard Horton, BSc, MB, ChB, Editor-in-Chief, The Lancet.
In his testimony, Dr. Thorp introduced the family of Science journals that cover scientific news, commentary, and peer reviewed articles. He described the review process at Science. An initial vetting determines if articles will move to the next step which includes a successive round of reviews followed by additional checks. He also spoke about the pros and cons of the relatively new and growing practice of sharing preprints, explaining the benefits of getting research out to the public more quickly, while also noting the risks of media covering science that had not been subjected to a thorough review. Thorp mentioned two Science papers that supported a natural origin of COVID-19 and also flagged the journal’s publication of a letter calling for a serious investigation into the possibility of a ‘lab leak.’
