The American Journal of Public Health is the flagship publication of the American Public Health Association, which has more than 25,000 members worldwide. The AJPH boasts that it is “a highly influential publication,” which is why I accepted an invitation from editor-in-chief Alfredo Morabia in 2020 to comment in a journal forum on FDA regulation of e-cigarettes. At that time Morabia invited a range of experts, both advocates and supporters of FDA tobacco regulation and critics.
Notably, I and Derek Yach, former president of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, acknowledged our conflicts of interest with the tobacco industry. My commentary, which was critical of FDA actions, was published here. (I had first published in AJPH a quarter century before.)
At the time of the forum, AJPH editors wrote, “we will invite everyone to reassess the situation in a year.” After a delay perhaps caused by Covid, on March 16, 2022 I was invited by Morabia to submit a commentary by April 1. Neither AJPH invitation email provided any guidance as to form or content for my submission.
I did so, and you can read the draft here. On April 22, Morabia summarily rejected my commentary. That same day, I wrote to him, expressing my confusion and asking for reconsideration (available here). There was no response.
Continue reading An editor invited me to submit a commentary, then he rejected it – and named and blamed me in an editorial