Trump nominees debut new science journal aimed at spurring scientific discourse, increasing transparency

President Donald Trump's nominees to run the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration are part of a group of scientists censored during the COVID-19 pandemic who are introducing new scientific journal focused on spurring scientific debate.

Stanford's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, left, appears alongside Johns Hopkins University's Dr. Marty Makary. (Getty Images/Fox News)

JAPH is adopting a novel approach by publishing peer reviews of prominent studies from other journals that do not make their peer reviews publicly available. The effort is aimed at spurring scientific discourse, Kulldorff said in a paper outlining the purposes of the journal's creation.

The journal will also seek to promote "open access" by making all of its work available to everyone in the public without a paywall, he said, and the journal's editorial leadership will allow all scientists within its network to "freely publish all their research results in a timely and efficient manner," to prevent any potential "gatekeeping."

"Scientific journals have had enormous positive impact on the development of science, but in some ways, they are now hampering rather than enhancing open scientific discourse," Kulldorff said. "After reviewing the history and current problems with journals, a new academic publishing model is proposed – it embraces open access and open rigorous peer review, it rewards reviewers for their important work with honoraria and public acknowledgment and it allows scientists to publish their research in a timely and efficient manner without wasting valuable scientist time and resources."

‘WHAT A RIPOFF!’: TRUMP SPARKS BACKLASH AFTER CUTTING BILLIONS IN OVERHEAD COSTS FROM NIH RESEARCH GRANTS

Kulldorff, Bhattacharya, Makary and others on the new journal's leadership team have complained that their views about the COVID-19 pandemic were censored. These were views that were often contrary to the prevailing ideas put forth by the broader medical community at the time, which related to topics such as vaccine efficacy, natural immunity, lockdowns and more.

Dr. Martin Kulldorff is a former Harvard Medical School professor. (Getty Images)

"The JAPH will ensure quality through open peer-review, but will not gatekeep new and important ideas for the sake of established orthodoxies," Andrew Noymer, JAPH's incoming editor-in-chief told Fox News Digital. 

"To pick one example, in my own sub-field of infectious disease epidemiology, we have in the past few years seen too little published scholarship on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. Academic publishing as it exists today is too often concerned with preservation of what we think we know, too often to the detriment of new ideas."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Bhattacharya and Makary did not wish to comment on this article.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-nominees-debut-new-science-journal-aimed-spurring-scientific-discourse-increasing-transparency