How political should a general medical journal be?

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7378.1431

BMJ 2002;325:1431-1432 ( 21 December )

Editorials

How political should a general medical journal be?

There's no easy way to decide

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon passed without a word from the BMJ. We decidedto mark the anniversary not by a minute's silence but by a wholeissue's, judging we could add nothing of value to the tower ofwords that had already been erected in the victims' memory. Inthe week after the attacks, we restricted our coverage to twofirst person accounts written by people who had been in New Yorkand Washington at the time. By contrast, the Lancet devoted ninearticles to the attacks in its issue of 22 September 2001, withanother 13 marking the first anniversary. Some of these articlescontained very little medicine. So has the Lancet overdone it,confusing its role with that of a political weekly, or have weunderdone it, neglecting the huge implications of theattacks?

Just how political should a general . . . [Full text of this article]

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