A group of Canadian doctors and editors is launching a new online medical journal that they say will be free from the influence of pharmaceutical companies.

Open Medicine is an open-access journal that won't charge subscription fees or run advertisements for drugs or medical devices. The first issue goes live online on Wednesday. There is no print edition.

The new journal aims to be as free as possible from financial conflicts of interest, Dr. Stephen Choi says.
(CBC)

A group of former editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal and their colleagues founded the journal on two principles: open access and editorial independence.

"We believe that this is important for maintaining the highest level of integrity in scientific publishing and to avoid conflicts of interest that could potentially bias what is published in the medical journal," Dr. Stephen Choi, an emergency doctor in Ottawa, told CBC Newsworld on Tuesday.

Under the principle of open access and the collaborative spirit of science, Open Medicine will make new medical information freely available online immediately. Authors keep rights to the published material, rather than the journal.

Choi was a deputy editor at CMAJ who resigned in protest after the journal's top two editors, Dr. John Hoey and Anne Marie Todkill, were fired in 2006. The journal's publisher, Graham Morris, denied the firings were related to concerns over specific stories, saying CMAJ wanted to make "some changes in emphasis."

The resignation letter accused the CMA of bad faith and trying to censor the prestigious medical journal.

"There have been numerous instances at medical journals over the past several years where editorial independence has been questioned," Choi said.

"Questions have been raised from the scientific community as to the independence of the decision making at journals, and whether commercial interests or political agendas have influenced what appears in the journal, or what does not appear in the journal."

Wednesday's inaugural issue includes articles on:

• A team of 17 Canadian and U.S. researchers who conclude the quality of care in Canada is at least as good as that in the U.S.
• Whether rural medical students are shunning urban medical schools.
• Direct-to-consumer advertising and spending on prescription drugs in Canada and the U.S.

Manuscripts had been coming in steadily even before Wednesday's launch of Open Medicine, said Hoey.

The peer-reviewed general medical journal will be run on a not-for-profit basis by an unpaid, part-time editorial staff of 10.

The new editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr. Paul Hebert, said he wishes the new journal well, but he considers it a long way from being competition.