The letters began arriving at medical journals around the country over the last few weeks.
"It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications … are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates," wrote Edward R. Martin Jr., the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in a letter to the journal CHEST.
Martin then asks a series of questions — about misinformation, competing viewpoints and the influence of funders such as advertisers and the National Institutes of Health.
"The public has certain expectations and you have certain responsibilities," the letter adds. Martin asks for a response by May 2.
"We were surprised," says Dr. Eric Rubin, the editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, one of at least four journal editors to get a letter from Martin and probably the most prominent. "Other journals had gotten letters before, so it wasn't a shock, but, still, a surprise."
In addition to Rubin's journal, Martin has sent letters to JAMA, which is published by the American Medical Association; Obstetrics & Gynecology, a journal of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and CHEST, which is published by the American College of Chest Physicians. There may be others.
"We were concerned because there were questions that suggested that we may be biased in the research we report," Rubin says. "We aren't. We have a very rigorous review process. We use outside experts. We have internal editors who are experts in their fields as well. And we spend a lot of time choosing the right articles to publish and trying to get the message right. We think we're an antidote for misinformation."
Rubin says the letter mentioned that the journal has tax-exempt status.
"It does feel like there's a threatening tone to the letter and it is trying to intimidate us," Rubin says.
First Amendment protection may be no deterrent
The letters don't cite any specific examples of supposed bias or say what action Martin might take.
But others say the letters raise serious concerns.
"It's pretty unprecedented," says J.T. Morris, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group. He says the First Amendment protects medical journals.
"Who knows? We've seen this administration take all sorts of action that doesn't have a legal basis and it hasn't stopped them," Morris says. "And so there's always a concern that the federal government and its officials like Ed Martin will step outside and abuse their authority and try to use the legal process and abuse the court system into compelling scientific journals and medical professionals and anybody else they disagree with into silence."
Science depends on publication in journals
Medical journals play a crucial role in vetting and disseminating scientific information, including which treatments and public health measures work, which don't and which ones might be dangerous or safe.
"It's an indication of the degree to which this administration will go to try to interfere with scientific research and the scientific community," says Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington. "They'll do just about anything and tamper with science in any way that they think will be helpful."
The letters come as the Trump administration has been trying to influence what scientists can say in a variety of ways. The administration has stifled communication by federal scientists and slashed studies about misinformation, about how to talk about vaccines and about LGBTQ+ health issues.
It has been requiring scientists to scrub language in their grants and research deemed "woke," including gender terminology.
"This is a set of policies attacking the scientific community, whether it's scientists in universities or in institutions like NIH, FDA, CDC or journals and their editors," says Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, a leading British medical journal. The Lancet has not received one of the letters, Horton says, but published an editorial condemning the inquiries.
"This is a research ecosystem, and it is the working of that research ecosystem which has delivered these phenomenal breakthroughs over so many decades. And that is what's being attacked," Horton says.
Trump administration has criticized journals
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya have both criticized medical journals. Kennedy has even threatened legal action against journals. Just before taking over at the NIH, Bhattacharya helped start a new journal aimed at providing an alternative to mainstream publications.
Neither Martin nor the Department of Justice responded to NPR's requests for comment.
But some other people also assert that the dominant medical journals are biased.
"I share concerns with the U.S. attorney that American scientific groups and journals have become far too activist and far too left wing in recent years," says Judge Glock, who directs research at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.
But even Glock and others who share that view stop short of wanting the Justice Department to investigate medical journals.
"In general, the U.S. attorney shouldn't be concerning himself or herself with the position of these particular journals," Glock says. "They should not ask for information, and they should not be trying to encourage them to publish different types of editorials or change their editorial practices based on what a U.S. attorney feels is appropriate."
But there is some support for how Martin is pressing the journals.
"They are absolutely biased, and we've seen that they've been captured by what I called a blob, which is a form of gatekeepers that are colluding with the Big Pharma and the public health agencies and academia and they all know each other," says Roger Severino of the Heritage Foundation, another conservative think tank. "So, yes, there has been a lot of bias, and they should be finding the truth first and foremost. But instead they become just another special interest."
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