Rapid Responses to:

LETTERS: Guillermo A Herrera Taracena, Pennie Marchetti, Ian G Roberts, Colin D Butler, Pandora Pound, Adam Jacobs, and Morris Doublet-Stewart How political should a general medical journal be? BMJ 2003; 326: 820 [Full text]

Rapid Responses: Submit a response to this article

Rapid Responses published:

History of politics in general medical journals

Mark Powlson, 49 Falcon Avenue, Bedford MK41 7DY, UK   (13 April 2003)

History of politics in general medical journals 13 April 2003
Mark Powlson, Managing Editor Prescribers' Journal Ltd, 49 Falcon Avenue, Bedford MK41 7DY, UK Send response to journal: Re: History of politics in general medical journals	EDITOR-It is futile to pretend that a general medical journal could ever not be political:(1)history shows otherwise. Of the five major medical journals described by Roberts,(2) four have their origins in overtly campaigning (and often in the past, if not the present, overtly self-interested) groups of doctors - namely the BMJ (the British Medical Association and its predecessors), the New England Journal of Medicine (the Massachussetts Medical Society), JAMA (the American Medical Association) and the Annals of Internal Medicine (the American College of Physicians). The fifth, The Lancet, was set up as an overtly campaigning journal, its founder and first editor standing for 17 years as a Radical Member of Parliament (noted on his first, unsuccessful, candidature for Finsbury in 1832 for a refusal to campaign on his own behalf, and favouring extension of suffrage, removal of property qualifications for candidates, repeal of the Corn Laws, abolition of slavery and suspension of the Newspaper Tax Act). Politics interacts in so many ways with health, and with delivery of health care, that it cannot be ignored in medical journals. It is political bias that should be avoided. Quite how is another matter. Mark Powlson 1. Delamothe T. How political should a general medical journal be? BMJ 2992; 325: 1431-2. 2. Roberts IG. Medical journals may have had a role in justifying war. BMJ 2003; 326: 820. Competing interests:   None, but I think I would support Wakley's platform if only I knew what the Newspaper Tax Act actually was.