Editorial independence at the BMJ: Incident at Sri Lankan medical journal may show the way

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7461.351-a

BMJ 2004;329:351 (7 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7461.351-a

Letter

Editorial independence at the BMJ

Incident at Sri Lankan medical journal may show the way

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

EDITOR—Smith wrote about editorial independence at theBMJ.¹ A parallel situation exists in Sri Lanka.

The Ceylon Medical Journal is a quarterly publication of theSri Lanka Medical Association. The two editors of the journalare appointed by the council of the association every threeyears and they become ex officio members of the council. Thejournal is independent, like the BMJ, although it bears no explicitstatement that the views expressed in the journal are thoseof the authors and may not necessarily comply with the policyof the Sri Lanka Medical Association.

However, in August 2000 it was brought to the notice of thecouncil that two fillers appearing under the caption "Economiston the LTTE" could damage the reputation of the Sri Lanka MedicalAssociation because the Ceylon Medical Journal has been an officialpublication of the association.^2
3 The journal's editors agreedto . . . [Full text of this article]

Murali Vallipuranathan, medical officer

Department of Health, 385 Deans Road, Colombo-10, Sri Lanka drmurali_1999@yahoo.com