Version française ici.
In a previous article, I analysed the pros and cons of peer review and, with regard to publication platforms, I mentioned the balance of risks that an unevaluated publication may contain scientifically erroneous information or, on the contrary, allow free expression (1). We know, especially since the global health crisis of 2020-2023, apart from the very many retractions by the authors themselves, the extent to which scientific publishers tend to reject a great many articles and, in particular, those that contradict the ‘doxa’, falsely called the ‘consensus’, on various pretexts. The very particular phenomenon of the perception of urgency has, it should be pointed out, completely disrupted the process, with an unprecedented increase in the number of submissions as well as in the speed of publication and, as a corollary, in the rejection rate.
A recent article sheds new light on this debate. Published on an anti-establishment platform, Sensible Medicine, the American researcher Vinay K. Prasad, a professor at the UCSF’s School of Medicine (2), reveals how often he has been rejected by the major open platforms. Ironically, he also reports on the significant increase in his readership following such rejections.
He denounces « a startling pattern of censorship and inconsistent standards from pre-print servers » which, he says, « appear to be playing politics ».
Of the 20 articles he submitted to MedRxiv, 7 were withdrawn by the platform (38%). The 7 rejections were subsequently accepted by another platform and downloaded en masse. « The median number of downloads for a rejected/removed article that was later accepted by a different server was 4,142 vs 300 for articles submitted and accepted without rejection or removal ».
In his view, the justifications for the rejections were unfounded. « All [the articles rejected] are consistent with scientific practices and norms, and similar papers not critical of the CDC or Biden administration have been accepted. The pre-print server flags articles that might contradict widely accepted public-health advice. But, public health advice has been often based on small, biased studies. For example, the CDC’s recommendation for mask mandates initially stemmed from a study of 2 masked hairdressers. Later, a Cochrane review of multiple randomized studies concluded that the evidence for face masks for COVID protection was uncertain. Pre-print servers are essentially banning criticism of flawed governmental agencies ».
Prasad points out that the publication platforms rejected his articles, while accepting articles whose methods proved to be much weaker, « a hallmark of hypocrisy », in his view. An article criticising methodological errors in statistics made by the CDC that led to inappropriate health policy was withdrawn on the grounds that it was not a « systematic evaluation with reproducible methodology ». The authors identified 25 cases where the CDC published statistical or numerical errors. Twenty (80%) of these cases exaggerated the seriousness of the situation concerning COVID-19, three (12%) cases minimised the seriousness of the situation, one case was neutral and another exaggerated the risks associated with the COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC was informed of the errors in 16 cases and corrected some of them in 13 cases.
In the end, the article was posted on SSRN, « where it has received almost 40,000 downloads to date and has led to widespread criticism of the CDC, which MedRxiv may not have intended ». Duly noted.
- The question arises in all fields, with varying degrees of acuity as, for example, is currently the case for LK99, which is assumed to be superconducting at ordinary temperature.
- Vinay Prasad made a name for himself during the health crisis with his rigorous but highly critical analyses of the policies of the US official agencies.
Ouvertures immédiates / Immediate openings 