A new public relations campaign to be launched by the American Association of Publishers will equate open access to scientific journal articles with government censorship.

Email messages leaked to the journal Nature describe a meeting last summer, arranged by the association's professional and scholarly publishing division. The meeting was between employees of the publishing houses Elsevier and Wiley and the American Chemical Society and the public relations consultant Eric Dezenhall (Nature, www.nature.com, 10.1038/445347a).

Mr Dezenhall, author of several novels and of Nail 'Em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses, specialises in “marketplace defence” and has been described by an industry publication as the “pit bull of PR.”

Mr Dezenhall described his proposed public relations strategy in …