Academics warning doctors and researchers may be reluctant to subscribe and contribute to eminent publication over concerns about credibility

The backlash from academics, scientists and doctors was swift when a respected emeritus professor of public health, Stephen Leeder, was sacked from his role as editor-in-chief of Australia’s most eminent medical journal last Friday.

The future of the Medical Journal of Australia [MJA], at least at present, looks perilous, with academics warning people may be reluctant to subscribe and contribute to it in future.

Leeder’s downfall came because he challenged what he said was a non-consultative move by the journal’s publisher, AMPCo, to outsource some of the journal’s functions to the international publishing company Elsevier.

The AMPCo board said it had consulted Leeder, and that financial challenges made the move necessary.

“In fact, AMPCo’s financial position has been perilous, on the brink,” associate professor Brian Owler, who is the president of the Australian Medical Association, parent company of AMPCo, said.

But the protest by Leeder and others about the move to Elsevier has been to do with more than just the outsourcing of production and cost-cutting.

With the MJA the country’s only peer-reviewed general medical journal, relied on by doctors, journalists and academics, it was also an issue of ethics and credibility. Leeder was adamant the journal’s ongoing success depended not just on financial viability, but on high editorial standards being maintained.

Medical publishing is a competitive, tough business. But for big publishers such as Nature, Elsevier and Springer, it is also highly profitable.

There is an increasing backlash against their economic models which see authors charged to submit their research papers for review, and readers charged to access those papers if they make the cut.

Medical Journal of Australia will be shunned by researchers after editor sacked, academic says Read more

Elsevier has the added burden of being dogged by criticisms of its ethical standards.

More than 15,000 researchers have signed a petition protesting against the company’s business practices, including their charging of high prices for subscriptions to individual journals, and their lack of support for free, open access to information.



Open access proponents argue it is in the public interest for everyone to have access to scientific knowledge, and not just those who can afford it, and that the research produced by big names in particular should be of high quality.



In 2009, Elsevier was forced to apologise for its partnership with a pharmaceutical company to produce a fake medical journal which spruiked particular drugs.

With Leeder invested in ensuring the MJA was able to continue its 100-year tradition of integrity in medical publishing, his protestation about Elsevier’s involvement was unsurprising.

But he was not ignorant about the financial challenges the journal was facing, visiting respected international journals such as the Lancet and the Journal of the American Medical Association to see how they were surviving in the digital era.

It cost the AMA $2.35m to deliver the MJA to about 30,000 members, while the $78 paid by each member for a year’s subscription was cheaper than any other medical journal, Leeder wrote for the Conversation on Wednesday.

“Nevertheless, the publisher ought to investigate and scrutinise the many ways to save money,” he wrote.

Professor Martin Tattersall, a surgical oncologist, and one of 19 MJA editorial board members who resigned in the wake of Leeder’s sacking, said Leeder had been preparing the MJA for a new future.

“I think the way he was sacked seems to be a very bad move in the history of the move of the MJA, and a lot of people will feel the decision to move to Elsevier is an an unwise one with long-term consequences for the journal’s survival,” Tattersall said.



AMPCo is standing by the decision, and history suggests its board does not easily succumb to the views of the AMA and its members.

In 2012, Dr Annette Katelaris, who many cite as being responsible for a spike in MJA readership figures, was also sacked as editor. Differences in opinion between Katelaris and the board were cited as the reason.

But the sacking of Leeder in conjunction with the Elsevier move has created such unease that a former editor of the highly prized British Medical Journal, Richard Smith, has also weighed in.

“Who would want to edit a journal where editors last no longer than Premier League football managers (and without the handsome payoff)?” Smith wrote.

Dr Adam Dunn, a researcher with the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University who has researched open-access models of publishing, said academic distrust of Elsevier was widespread.

However, Dunn was less critical of its pay-for-access model than some, pointing out 75% of Elsevier’s journal articles were “green” open-access, which meant while people had to pay to access articles, they became free after an embargoed period of time.

“The real concern about the MJA moving to Elsevier in my view is that Elsevier may control what is happening within the journal, what is being published,” Dunn said.

“So key to the MJA surviving long term, especially its reputation, will be making sure it maintains editorial control.”

AMPCo has said editorial processes would remain intact under the move.

But a professor of public health at Bond University, Chris Del Mar, who resigned from the MJA editorial board after Leeder was dropped as editor, said it was never made clear to him or his peers how that would work.

“Many of us foresee that this will be a flawed process, that the whole process of commissioning and reviewing articles, and then seeing them through to publication, needs to be a seamless activity,” he said. “You can’t just hand it over to someone else in the middle of that.”

He described the MJA as being at “a very important crossroads”.

“This is a terrible time for the most important medical publication in Australia and it’s under a significant threat, which doesn’t seem to be appreciated by AMPCo,” Del Mar said.

“To us who have been supporting the journal for a very long time, it feels AMPCo knows what the MJA costs, but they don’t know what it’s worth.

“This could be a tragedy, and at the moment, I can’t think of a solution to it from where we are now.”