New Open Access Health Journal

Exciting news: the Academy of Public Health’s aptly-named Journal of the Academy of Public Health (https://x.com/RCJAPH), will be published by the non-profit RealClear Foundation. As explained in the opening editorial by Editor-in-Chief Martin Kulldorff, “The Rise and Fall of Scientific Journals and a Way Forward,” the journal is a “new publication model” that is “open access and open peer review.” Kulldorff is one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (as is another founding member, Jay Bhattcharya, who is on leave pending his nomination as director of the National Institutes of Health; the Board also includes Marty Makary, Donald Trump’s nominee to head the FDA).

Quite admirably, the journal will publish new articles totally free of copyright:

All articles in the Journal of the Academy of Public Heath [sic] are open access and freely available for anyone to read. They are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, permitting its broad reuse and distribution so long as appropriate source and author attributions are made.

As Kulldorff’s editorial notes,

A way forward can be built on four pillars:

1. Open access, so that scientific articles can be read by all scientists and anyone in the public.

2. Open peer reviews that anyone can read at the same time as they read articles; signed by the reviewer.

3. Rewarding reviewers with an honorarium and public acknowledgement for their critically important work.

4. Removal of article gatekeeping, letting an organization’s scientists freely publish all their research results in a timely and efficient manner.

Its model is reminiscent of the one I used in my journal Libertarian Papers, published from 2009 to 2018, which also used the CC BY license. (See its About page; my opening note Welcome to Libertarian Papers!; the archived Submissions page; my final editorial, “Ten Years of Libertarian Scholarship”.)

Of course, predictably, as a recent email from Tom Woods notes,

the gatekeepers are less than thrilled about the new journal.

Here’s the laughably misnamed Science:

“New Journal Co-Founded by NIH Nominee Raises Eyebrows, Misinformation Fears”

Subtitle: “The Journal of the Academy of Public Health claims to open up scientific communication. But its unusual editorial policies have some scientists concerned.”

Here’s Wired:

“Donald Trump’s NIH Pick Just Launched a Controversial Scientific Journal”

Subtitle: “The journal’s editorial board includes multiple scientists, such as Trump health nominees Jay Bhattacharya and Marty Makary, who opposed Covid public health measures.”

Yes, they’re still defending the “Covid public health measures.”

And then, of course, Politico:

“Critics worry it will erode scientific integrity and push politics.”

My dear friend, I presume you do not require a lengthy essay from me in order to realize that these critics are accusing Jay and his colleagues of doing exactly what they themselves have been doing for years on end.

Imagine having so little shame or self-awareness as to put the country through the Covid madness and then accuse other people of eroding scientific integrity.

In any case, they have my congratulations, and I wish them good luck. I hope this model catches on going forward. (See also the Directory of Open Access Journals, or DOAJ, for information on other journals of this type.)