Response to Accusations Related to a Controversial Article and Editorial Board Activities
– Scientific Research Publishing
This is SCIRP’s response to a blog post published on 2015-04-23 by Jeffrey Beall who iscampaigning against Open Access and as such also against SCIRP as one of the largest Open Access journal publishers. Beall’s campaign is criticized for its “sweeping generalizations with no supporting evidence” and refuted by SCIRP. Beall’s recent blog post is this:
Beall has no own new message. He is copying a blog post written by Mattias Lantz, published on 2015-04-12. Lantz’ investigation gives Beall an easy opportunity to slander SCIRP once again. Lantz’ blog post is this:
Response:
the article has been peer-reviewed !!!
The article “Changes in congenital anomaly incidence in West Coast and Pacific States (USA) after arrival of Fukushima fallout”, which came under attack …
- … has been extensively peer-reviewed with the result:
- The authors have to revise the manuscript.
- The paper should be accepted once a proper revision is presented.
Here are the 4 reviews done for the manuscript:
Review 1:
This study should be published, although not in its current form. The tables would be easier to understand in a different format and with some additional clarification and description in both the text and in a table legend.
It is somewhat confusing as to how the actual dates of data accruement were chosen: all 5 congenital anomalies chosen to report would have occurred before 3 months ega so, unless births in April, May, June, July, Aug and Sept (and possibly Oct) are used as a control population (representing 10-4 months of ega at time of exposure respectively), one would not predict the in utero exposure to have an effect on the defects chosen. It might be better (except in the case of premature births) to use data from infants born in Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan (representing in utero exposure at 4, 3, 2 and 1 month, respectively) as that might increase the statistical significance of the findings.
It is also interesting that Hawaii, which is about 1000 miles closer to Japan, than California, has lower rates. Thus, some mechanism needs to be used to be able to compare aggregate data from each state. That is usually the number per 100,000 births, but that seems to be skewed here as well.
Finally, in describing the different anomalies, the authors should include more information about embryology – for example, timing of closure of the anterior neuropore in anencephaly (week 4 postconception), the posterior neuropore in spina bifida (week 4 postconception), the palate and lip (4-6 weeks postconception) and the return of the intestines and closure of the abdominal wall in omphalocele (by week 11 postconception). Regarding the use of trisomy 21 as a measured anomaly syndrome, since this condition is related to preconception or time of conception (as meiosis is completed in the egg only after conception) nondisjunction, one might predict an increase in the future overall rates of trisomy 21 occurrence since nondisjunction can affect any gamete after exposure.
Again, this paper should be published, it is just rather difficult to read and understand in its current form.
Review 2:
The article requires major revision for acceptance in the journal.
- The introduction should be short mentioning only relevant points.
- What is new in the incidence of congenital malformation in this article? Please highlight those points.
- The methodology requires explanation: “The statistical significance of differences in 2010-2011 changes between the two groups of states will be tested using a formula (below) that creates a 95% confidence interval of the differences. If the upper and lower bounds of the confidence interval both exceed zero, the difference is statistically significant.”
- What were the inclusion and exclusion criteria?
- Were these pregnant females exposed to any other teratogens? Pl mention.
- The discussion should be short related to your results.
Review 3:
This is a very interesting analysis which makes the most of the available data to ask questions about the effects of the very low levels of radionuclide contamination from Fukushima which reached the west coast of the USA. The authors have avoided a time series and compared increases in two reasonably chosen groups, exposed and not exposed to fallout from Fukushima. The statistical method they chose to use seems rather unusual but is not to be faulted for that reason. I would prefer to see tables showing the base populations in each group and time period, but the populations can be generated from the data they give, and using a different approach shows that their statistical conclusions are valid. It would have been interesting to see what the normal variation in the rates of these combined malformations are over a longer period, say from 2005, so that we can be secure that the rate change per year is less than the rate changes which they ascribe to Fukushima. I do not demand that, but I believe their paper would be stronger for it, and it is certain that there will be criticisms from others on this matter. However, the comparisons of the high dose and low dose groups seem to show that these low dose exposures are having an effect. Other studies have also suggested that the foetus is exquisitely sensitive to internal radiation exposures and I believe this paper should be published to encourage further research on this very serious and important issue.
Review 4:
(1) Major comments:
- Word count- the whole write up needs to be concise and succinct, including introduction.
- Methodology needs to be precise,
- You cannot just cite US CDC tables, you have to summarize in order to make it simple.
- Results needs major revamp- make a single comparative pre post table including P values and important details
- Limitations & Future directions of your study needs to be discussed
(2) Minor comments:
- Affiliations not mentioned
- Conflict of interest not clarified
joseph mangano answers to the case
Subject: Re: "Changes in Congenital Anomaly ..." --- Trouble for SCIRP Sent: 29 Apr 2015 15:32 From: odiejoe@aol.com Cc: toxdoc.js@verizon.net ..., we have published 4 peer reviewed articles on health hazards of Fukushima. EVERY ONE has been angrily rebutted by somebody. They have no data of their own. They say bad things about our methods and conclusions. They say bad things about the journal (your, and one other). And they're silent about other topics - only Fukushima, which may be the worst industrial accident in history. I am author/co-author of 34 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Sherman has over 100. We use the same methods as in many of our other papers. The answer to your question is: Dr. Sherman and I have NO competing interests in publishing this material. I want to thank you and the Open Journal of Pediatrics for standing tall about this important issue. People want to know. The prior two articles on the topic are the two most popular articles in OJPED. Nobody else is publishing articles in journals on Fukushima. Many thanks, Joseph Mangano MPH MBA Janette Sherman MD
review of communication with editorial board members
Written evidence is availabe in the Editorial Office from EACH and EVERY Editorial Board member to have agreed to be on the Editorial Board (EB). In 12 cases the proof includes the signature of the Editorial Board member under the Appointment Letter. In the other (older) cases proof of editor’s consent can be made by showing respective e-mail correspondence. Please e-mail the Editorial Assistant (EA) if you want to see proof in a particular case.
Editorial Board members were regularly asked if they could please review a manuscript. No such request was issued to any one EB member later than 2014-06-10. Most were addressed recently. All EB members who said they were never asked to perform duties are lying. Some EB members regularly agree to requests to review. The best example at OJPed is Dr. Carl Friedrich Classen (Germany), who reviewed 13 manuscripts – the most of all EB members! Thanks! Other EB members never reviewed a manuscript. They declined or simply did not respond. EB members reviewed over the years a total of 42 manuscripts. As of today the Editorial Office considers only 5 EB members as “active”. The other EB members are simply considered “inactive”, but were so far tolerated to stay on the EB, as they did not harm anyone. This has changed now!
Some inactive EB members forgot that they once agreed to be on the EB (and made false statements about it). Some EB members did not notice their appointment had expired already. Others may have noticed, but did neither react by reminding the EA or EiC to renew the appointment nor did they decide to quit.
One EB member wrote recently some nice words when the term of his Appointment Letter ended: “I am now retired from clinical and scientific work, and will not be able to take on further obligations. I am sorry for this, and want to thank OJPED for all good cooperation in the years I have published in and been associated with your excellent journal.”
Summary: The review of EB communication shows a mixed situation. Members of the EB are active in the review of manuscripts. Similar to other situations in life, the burden from work as an editor is not carried equally among EB members. A few EB members do much, the majority does very little to nothing.
lantz has undeclared competing financial interests!
Mattias Lantz (picture) (PhD 2005) works part-time (50 %) for “Analysgruppen” and is researcher in applied nuclear physics at Uppsala University, Sweden. “Analysgruppen” is part of “Kärnkraftsäkerhet och Utbildning” (Nuclear Safety and Training, KSU), which in turn is part ofVattenfall, a large operator of power plants in Europe, many of them nuclear power plants. “The analysis group pursues extensive immediate debate activities. Misleading or incorrect information in the mass media or in the political debate is countered speedily and consistently, either by official statements or by mail.” (Wiksdahl 1991). In other words: Lantz is paid for writing against critique of nuclear power. This is exactly what he was doing with this blog post. If someone expresses reasonable doubt about nuclear power, Lantz is paid to step in and pull it down. He is paid to lobby for nuclear power. Working half time on this job already since January 2013, it is no surprise that Lantz is already known for his online attacks against other researchers.
papers in ojped get properly peer-reviewed – lantz’ arguments fail
Lantz is trying to prove that articles in Open Journal of Pediatrics are normally not peer-reviewed. He argues: “So there have been a few editors that have acted according to the Appointment Letter. They have performed serious peer review in good faith. But none of them seem to have been involved in more than a few articles. If the same trend follows for the 8 editors that have not responded, then only a handful of the 206 articles published in OJPed since 2011 have been scrutinized according to the journal’s own guidelines.”
All papers in OJPed get properly peer-reviewed. Lantz’ argument fails for three reasons:
1.) Lantz wrongly assumes that all members of the Editorial Board have been there already from the beginning of the journal. Editorial Board member’s memory can only go back to when they started on the board. This does not fit to considering the total number of papers published since journal start in a comparison.
2.) Lantz wrongly assumes that only members of the Editorial Board would act as reviewers. This is not true. True is rather the opposite: Most reviews are done by reviewers who are not at the same time members of the Editorial Board. In the Appointment Letter each member of the Editorial Board is asked to do up to 5 reviews each year if necessary. With 23 editors this would be a potential of 115 reviews per year. Papers published in 2013 were 74 and in 2014 were 41. Many manuscripts are pre-rejected (and do not enter the full review process). So, manuscripts getting into the full review process have a good chance of being finally accepted.
All facts together: There are by far not enough manuscripts traditionally assigned to members of the Editorial Board to keep everyone busy up to the maximum number requested in the Appointment Letter. Indeed, it is not unusual for members of the Editorial Board to do not a single review during a particular year. Editorial Board members have alsoother duties. In contrast, reviewers are only asked to review and have no other duties for the journal. Manuscripts dealing with special aspects need special expert reviewers, which are often found outside of the Editorial Board.
3.) It is known from experience that unfortunately not all editors who sign up for membership on an Editorial Board of a journal will eventually contribute to journal activities. As we learn, some of them even forget that they are on the Editorial Board. This sad reality is compensated in advance by calling more members on the Editorial Board than necessary to do the work. Journal operation has to be guaranteed and a risk to fall short of stakeholders needs to be avoided from the outset.
editorial independence and its consequences
Interestingly, the scholarly kitchen just discusses the subtleness and consequences of “editorial independence“. Maybe this comment sums it up well for this case:
- Editorial independence has two sides: a) The publisher gives away responsibility and control. b) The academic as editor or EiC has accepted duties (and has even signed a contract). Work arising from these duties has to be done fully and in a timely manner. If duties can not be met, the contract may not need to be renewed at the end of its term. Otherwise the editor has to ask the EiC (the EiC has to ask the publisher) to find ways to get out of the contract before the term ends.
- Also the scholarly community has to better understand what editorial independence means. When criticizing, scholars should please first remember who is responsible for what. Blame can only be allocated according to responsibility.
inactive and disloyal editors get dismissed
Academics acting as reviewers, editors, or EiCs do all this without payment at SCIRP and often with much enthusiasm and time spent. It would be unrealistic to expect too much in such a situation. Therefore, the aim is to distribute work on many shoulders and to offer much support from the Editorial Office.
Having said this – at times the publisher would like to see more engagement of some of its academics. It is just unfair to sign up for a task (get well listed on the Internet) and to ignore the task subsequently. Unfortunately, academics do exist who have received much for free and have never returned any service (or payment). In publishing it is just as in normal life: People are different.
SCIRP is known for the very friendly and prompt service of its Editorial Assistants who support “their” Editor in Chief as much as possible. Maybe they are at times just too nice and supportive. OJPed’s Editor-in-Chief did not see reason to complain in his Editorial Office. He also did not use established Complaints Procedures. Notwithstanding the above, he made a questionable comment. With this he was disloyal and betrayed his own journal. Mistakes can be forgiven as Prof. Hunt stands by his journal. He is instructed to take due responsibility as EiC and not to assign responsibility to others without good reason.
SCIRP weeded out the journal’s Editorial Board. Dismissed were either for lack of service* or for disloyalty**:
- Prof. Farahnak Assadi, Rush University Medical Center, USA
- Dr. Sasigarn Arunchaiya Bowden, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, USA
- Prof. Robert Marshall Campbell, Emory University, USA
- Prof. Dana Connolly, New York University, USA
- Dr. James Henry Feusner, Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland, USA
- Prof. Sadik A. Khuder, University of Toledo, USA
- Prof. Scott A. Lorch, University of Pennsylvania, USA
- Prof. Scott E. Olitsky, Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, USA
- Prof. Victor C. Strasburger, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, USA
- Dr. Theoklis E. Zaoutis, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, USA
* Contract has ended and never done a review and never written a paper for a journal at SCIRPand considered “inactive” by the EA (based on the frequency of the communication).
** Not standing by the journal in critical times. Decided on this moral ground: “Peter replied, ‘Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ … ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.”
Members of the EB hold current Appointment Letters. In the wake of cleaning and weeding, a few EB members (considered sufficiently supportive in the past) received now Appointment Letters for renewal of their term.
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