Editors of Top Science Journals to Testify Before House Pandemic Committee, as Critics Call for End of Taxpayer Funding for ‘Corrupt’ Research

The U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic invited the editors of…

Children's Health Defense

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Amid controversy over censorship in peer-reviewed journals, the editors of three major science journals last week received invitations to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on the relationship between their publications and the federal government.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chair of the subcommittee, sent the letters to the editors-in-chief of The Lancet, Nature and Science, requesting their testimony for an April 16 hearing titled “Academic Malpractice: Examining the Relationship Between Scientific Journals, the Government, and Peer Review.”

According to Wenstrup’s office, the hearing seeks to examine “whether these journals granted the federal government inappropriate access into the scientific review or publishing process,” noting that the journals had previously communicated with Drs. Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins and other health officials.

Nature Medicine published the now infamous “Proximal Origin” paper in March 2020. The paper, which claimed COVID-19 had zoonotic, or natural, origins was subsequently used in attempts to censor proponents of the “lab-leak theory” of the virus’s origin.

In a press release, Wenstrup said:

“Millions of people worldwide relied on Science, Nature, and The Lancet to provide scientifically accurate and impartial research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“However, documents show that the federal government may have censored and manipulated the sacred scientific review processes at these journals to progress their preferred narrative about the origins of COVID-19.”

Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough welcomed the announcement of the hearing. He told The Defender:

“I used the term ‘academic fraud’ in my Nov. 19, 2020, Senate testimony. During the pandemic, for the first time in my career, I saw fraudulent papers published and valid ones retracted after full peer review.

“Publication actions always went in a consistent theme of duality: suppression of early therapeutics for acute COVID-19 and promotion of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines as safe and effective … Manuscripts demonstrating successful home treatment strategies were impeded, and above all, manuscripts disclosing COVID-19 vaccine injuries, disabilities and deaths were swept under the rug.”

Several experts said scientific journals censored non-establishment views but regularly published “fraudulent” papers.

Epidemiologist and public health research scientist M. Nathaniel Mead told The Defender:

“We have faced an unprecedented level of scientific censorship in the past four years, and this has created a climate of fear for the medical-scientific community, compelling many researchers and scholars to practice self-censorship.

“This has fostered a pervasive hesitancy to broach certain topics, even in venues or contexts that are theoretically supportive of free expression. As a result, dissenting viewpoints that could enhance scientific dialogue are stifled.”

According to molecular biologist Richard Ebright, Ph.D., “Science has published two patently unsound and presumably fraudulent papers on the subject of COVID-19 origins, has not retracted these papers, has refused to open inquiries into those papers, and has used its news division to promote the false narrative that science favors a natural origin of COVID-19 and to dismiss contrary evidence and contrary views.”

Mark Blaxill, chief financial officer of the Holland Center, a private autism treatment center, told The Defender, “Policymakers and legislators often defer to scientists, ‘experts’ and the published record. To the extent that the record is corrupted by political forces that lean to one side of legitimate public policy disputes, the journals are tilting the playing field in favor of powerful interests.”

This has resulted in “the increasing politicization of science,” as a result of which “the body of published science is becoming increasingly weaponized,” Blaxill said.

Similarly, journalist Paul D. Thacker, publisher of The Disinformation Chronicle, told The Defender he hopes “Congress has something better planned than just parading the scientists running these journals before the public and berating them for being corrupt, because documents I’ve reported on show these journal editors have no shame…