The British Medical Journal is one of the most prestigious publications in the world, but it has been accused of being partisan, fueling the culture war and driving a wedge into the scientific community. Throughout the pandemic, the group made regular YouTube updates, appeared frequently on television and gained a rabid following on social media as a result of their tough stance. Over the past two and a half years, they have supported various interventions and criticized many policy decisions to lift Covid restrictions. Once a zero-Covid advocacy group, they are now widely seen as pro-mask and very keen to bring back lockdown-style restrictions. But just as the public and the wider scientific community are moving into a post-Covid world, shutting out honest scientists on Twitter and scrolling through myriad charts, the largest medical journal in the country has thrown its weight behind the team. The goal of scientific and medical journals is to be the pinnacle of the scientific world. A publication that epitomizes the scientific process and the constant search for answers and truth, or at least trying to form a scientific consensus, while nurturing the health debate. However, accusations have been leveled at the BMJ that it only represented one side of the story and neglected to give other sides of the argument.
“Disappointing but not surprising”
Dr Jake Dunning, an infectious disease expert at the University of Oxford and UKHSA adviser, said the BMJ’s relationship with Independent Sage was “disappointing but not surprising”. “The BMJ has its own agenda and favourites. like iSage is not really independent or unbiased and that predates Covid by a long way,” he added. “I’ve always felt like he’s having a personality crisis, not sure if it’s a scientific journal or a medical journal.” Critics of the BMJ say that reaching a scientific consensus is never going to be an easy feat, but that putting the most outspoken members of one side of the debate without response only acts to fuel already deep-seated divisions. Kamran Abbasi, the editor of the BMJ, wrote an article where he said the new batch of editors will “investigate how information has been misused, abused and manipulated to fuel an ideologically driven ‘infodemic’”. In it, he writes that the series will describe both the successes and failures of the UK response, but says its conclusion is clear. “The UK’s response should have been much better… While the debate continues about how best to compare the resilience of national health systems to shocks such as pandemics, there is no doubt that the UK’s response has fallen far short of its potential.” , the article states. The reaction to the magazine’s editorial decision was fierce. Dr Michael Absoud, a consultant in pediatric neurodisability at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, told The Telegraph: “It is a shame that the BMJ is exacerbating our adversarial political system with articles dressed up as science.” On Twitter, he added that he felt “disappointed” that the BMJ was “choosing to ignite an unnecessary culture war”.
“Lost opportunity for objective evaluation”
Professor Tim Colbourn, professor of global health systems, epidemiology and evaluation at UCL, said:[It is] probably impossible with given entrenched sides, but it would be good for science if a journal tried to bring together scientists with different views on important topics like this to try to move toward scientific consensus in assigned pieces.” He also questioned whether the BMJ and its editor would publish “articles co-authored by people with publicly differing views”. In one of the articles, eight Independent Sage members write an “analysis” of how Covid-19 policy has affected children and schools. The group pushed for schools to remain closed in 2020 until Covid is eradicated, but has since moved away from that fanciful view. In their article, they claim the UK was an international emergency, the return to school in September 2020 “may have accelerated community spread” and accuse the government of relying on evidence that downplayed the severity of the coronavirus. Dr Alasdair Munro, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Southampton, called the one-sidedness of the BMJ publications “a real waste of opportunity for an objective and unbiased review”. He also wondered why, in a paper on the impact on children, no pediatricians were involved. “I am very disappointed that the BMJ, which I have long respected, has commissioned members of a group of political activists to do such a series,” he said.
“Full of mistakes”
He added that the content of the analysis itself was flawed and “full of errors”. A BMJ spokesman told the Telegraph: “It’s perfectly normal for people to disagree with articles that have a strong point of view. I wouldn’t describe it as a reaction. We want people to engage with the arguments. “We are not shutting down the debate by publishing these articles. Some of the authors of the series work with Independent Sage. There is nothing unusual about this. They are respected scientists and have written to us before. Other series authors are not affiliated with Independent Sage. We do not exclude people in or out based on their affiliation with Independent Sage. “We are happy to consider full article submissions from authors who have a different take on anything we publish, and these submissions are considered through our usual editorial and peer review process. The debate will continue – and we want it to.” “How does publishing a series of well-researched and well-documented texts on big topics start a culture war? We don’t expect everyone to agree with the views and arguments of the authors we publish.” Other series authors are not affiliated with Independent Sage.
