Unintended consequences of sanctions against Iran

Protecting editors

According to a report from Science magazine, Elsevier advised its US editors in April against handling any papers authored by employees of the government of Iran and in an email shown to the BMJ, the editor of JACI explained, “our publisher precludes taking any articles from authors based at Iranian institutions or hospitals.” Yet, Elsevier says it believes in the “free flow of ideas and information as a principle for science and for society” and chief lawyer, Mark Seeley, told the BMJ that the company continues to publish papers from Iranian academics and researchers affiliated with academic or medical institutions. Elsevier decided it was necessary to make “narrowly crafted exceptions” because of the potential for personal liability on the part of its US editors.2

Asked if some US editors had possibly misunderstood the publisher’s guidance on this, Seeley responded that the problem was over “the exact definition of ‘government employees’ other than academics and practitioners. Seeley said the company was seeking greater clarity but had not yet received it.

John Sullivan of the US Treasury told the BMJ that “The focus of our sanctions is the Iranian regime and its support for terrorism and its illicit nuclear programme. Our sanctions do not target academic or informational materials.”

A different view

Other American health publications, including the two leading journals the New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association, said they were continuing to publish Iranian submissions on merit.

“Different journals have adopted very different strategies on this,” Elaheh Malakan Rad, associate professor of paediatric interventional cardiology at the Children’s Medical Centre in Tehran, told the BMJ. “There needs to be clear guidance on the ethical issue here.”

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which advises editors on handling ethically sensitive issues, discussed problems surrounding Iranian authors in a June meeting and affirmed the need, already previously agreed because of other concerns, that clearer guidance is needed. COPE is planning to add a paragraph to its code of conduct stating that, “Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself.”

The United Kingdom government has also changed its sanctions recently and continually updates a list of banned authors and institutions thought to be involved in Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the BMJ continues to take papers on merit and has chosen in some instances to waive the usual author fee charged for open access publication of research because of regulations over bank transactions with Iran.

“The BMJ is against academic boycotts and has no restrictions on publishing articles from authors in Iran,” the BMJ’s editor, Fiona Godlee, said in a statement posted on bmj.com. “We have noted the UK’s restrictions on trading with Iran and are also aware of the new US restrictions. These may have implications for whether we can levy an author fee from an author in Iran. We will decide this on a case by case basis.”

Richard Horton, the editor of the Lancet (which is owned by Elsevier) said: “The Lancet welcomes and encourages research from scientists in all countries, including Iran. Indeed, we are currently working to strengthen our links with Iranian medical and public health scientists.”