Editorial independence at the BMJ

Editor—With reference to Smith's Editor's choice on editorial independence at the BMJ,¹ we have witnessed the gutting of the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA when their parent medical associations succumbed to their profound conflicts of interest. These associations' pursuit of revenue, coupled with their willingness to suppress papers that they or their advertisers didn't like, violated the editorial freedom of these journals' editors and diminished the prestige, credibility, and influence that these journals formerly enjoyed.

I believe that the current reorganisation of the BMJ and BMJ Publishing Group risks the same fate for the BMJ. This would be all the more tragic in light of substantial recent growth in the credibility and influence of the journal, not just in the United Kingdom but worldwide. The risk to the BMJ would be reduced by the creation of an oversight committee, constituted so that its membership is as free of professional and financial conflicts of interest as possible (with representation from, but not controlled by, the BMA Council).

This oversight committee would be tough with BMJ editors about how well they were applying high scientific standards in the review and publication of relevant submissions, and would scrutinise complaints about the journal's editorial policies and performance. Its crucial function would be to arbitrate editorial disputes between the BMJ and the BMA Council.

But to be effective, and to maintain the credibility and influence of the journal, the oversight committee's editorial decisions would have to be final. Oversight committees have been established recently at the CMAJ and JAMA (in the latter case, alas, too late to prevent serious damage). I believe that we could overcome the growing risk to the BMJ's editorial freedom, credibility, and influence by creating a BMJ oversight committee now.