Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3827

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Canadian Medical Association Journal fires 2 editors
CBC News Online 2006 Feb 21
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/02/21/cmaj060221.html

Keywords:
CMA CMAJ Hoey

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

It is too early for the full story on this matter to have come bubbling to the surface.

However, there is a fair chance that the matter of the editorial independance of a medical magazine which is owned by a medical association ( a situation which also prevails in other counties apart from Canada) will turn out to be one of the pivotal issues.

The timing of this announcement could not be worse, coming at a time when the behaviour of medical journals has already come under public scutiny following a series of scandals.

Included here is the official Press Release on the sacking-
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 20, 2006

Media Advisory

OTTAWA – The Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) announced that Dr. John Hoey would be leaving his post as Editor-in-Chief today.

During the ten years that Dr. Hoey has been Editor-in-Chief of CMAJ, he has broadened the scope of the publication and raised its international reputation as a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The CMAJ’s mission in serving its 69,000 readers is to provide accurate and up-to-date scientific and clinical information on the promotion of health and the treatment of disease.

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For more information:

Mr. Graham Morris
President of CMA Media Inc.
Tel: (613) 731-8610 ext. 2440

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for a 2004 article profiling Dr Hoey see- http://www.medicalpost.com/mpcontent/article.jsp?content=20040305_163426_5428

Full text:

Canadian Medical Association Journal fires 2 editors
Last Updated Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:02:06 EST
CBC News
The editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal has been fired, along with his senior deputy editor, CBC News has learned.

Dr. John Hoey and his deputy, Anne-Marie Todkill, were pushed out over questions of editorial freedom, sources say.

Dr. John Hoey was the editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. (file photo)
There are also suggestions the journal’s publisher, CMA Media Inc. – a subsidiary of the Canadian Medical Association – was unhappy with Hoey’s editorial stance on private health care.

The first public controversy between Hoey and the journal’s owner resulted from an investigative news story on ease of access to the “morning-after” pill from pharmacists, part of which was quashed by the publisher.

FROM APRIL 20, 2005: Morning-after pill switches to non-prescription in Canada

FROM CBC SASKATCHEWAN: Privacy concerns raised about morning-after pill rules

Hoey responded to changes to the story by writing an editorial condemning the medical association’s interference with editorial autonomy. He also struck a panel to look at the issue.

Private health care

Dr. Jerome Kassirer, the head of the panel, said the immediate cause of Hoey’s firing may be a story published online earlier in February headlined “Two-tier Tony Clement appointed new minister of health.”

FROM FEB. 9, 2001: New Health Minister dubbed ‘Two-tier Tony’

The article suggested Clement, the new federal health minister, would be friendly to private health care.

“There’s no question that private health care could be a boon for Canadian physicians and that the CMA probably would want to support privatization,” said Kassirer, who is also a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.

“Any argument against that by critics is likely to be seen as counter-productive to the goals of the CMA.”

The Clement story never made it into the printed journal and has since been pulled from the CMAJ website.

When Clement was Ontario’s health minister in 2001, he gave a speech to the Empire Club supporting more choice in getting health care.

CMA’s media publisher, Graham Morris, denies concerns over specific stories or that Hoey’s approach led to the firing.

“Nothing specifically about his approach, but we feel there are some changes in emphasis that we would like to make in the journal,” said Morris. “We felt this is the time to make the change.”

Morris wouldn’t elaborate on what changes he wants. He said he stands behind the principle of editorial independence.