Commentary: Scientific research serves the public good by advancing health and knowledge. Politicizing it erodes trust and threatens our ability to make informed, evidence-based decisions.
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Recent political interference in the scientific publishing process should alarm all of us. When the former acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, questioned the integrity of top medical journals in April, he not only misunderstood how science works, he also fueled dangerous mistrust in research that serves the public good.
In his letter to CHEST Journal, a peer-reviewed medical journal that has been published for 90 years, Martin asks questions about the journal’s “responsibilities to protect the public from misinformation” and its handling of “allegations that authors of works in your journals have misled readers.” The full letter is available on the NBC News website, reported April 18, 2025. Martin appears particularly concerned with how the journal ensures that “competing viewpoints” are represented. But what he overlooks is that science is fundamentally about testing competing ideas through evidence. The process is designed to challenge and refine knowledge, not to reflect political balance.
Publishing in a scientific journal isn’t as simple as hitting “send.” Every study undergoes expert review, a process we refer to as “peer review.” I like to think of it as akin to planning the menu of your first holiday dinner, hosting the entire family, but first running it by your mother and aunt, who have passed the baton onto you. Peer reviewers are experts in their fields who themselves have experience with projects similar to the one that the study under review is focused on. Reviewing a colleague’s work is an essential part of our work as researchers. We take it very seriously and do it for free. Serving as a peer reviewer is an expectation when working in research careers. For example, every year, I am asked not only how many articles I have had published, but also how many articles I have peer-reviewed.
As an educator who has taught scientific publishing for over 15 years, I have worked with hundreds of researchers committed to integrity in addition to my own research and publishing practice. Our students learn that as researchers, we are held to the highest standards of accountability and transparency. All published research studies include sections that outline to readers how the researchers have carried out their study and what they found out as a result. These two sections are called methods and results, respectively. These two sections form the core of every research manuscript. In my writing course for doctoral students, we spend half the semester refining just these two sections, underscoring how critical clarity and precision are to trustworthy research.
In the methods section, a scientist’s goal is to describe the exact process they followed as they carried out their research. Other researchers should be able to carry out the exact same research protocol and arrive at similar results. This ensures that results are reproducible and not prone to bias. Thus, adhering to strict ethical guidelines is at the core of scientific work. Scientists are guided by carefully crafted guidelines that have developed over the past century. One such guideline is a document called the “Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT)” for randomized control trials, one of the main genres published by journals such as CHEST and The New England Journal of Medicine, another recipient of Martin’s letter. Out of the 43 items on the CONSORT checklist, almost two-thirds are dedicated to the methods and results section alone.
Martin’s concerns — about funders’ influence, about political bias — are already addressed by these widely accepted standards. In addition to the CONSORT checklist, medical journals strictly follow a set of guidelines established by an international group of researchers called the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME). This 20-page document details authors’ responsibilities, funding disclosures, and research and publication ethics. It’s one of the most widely used resources in medical research. I’ve shared it with students for years, as have countless colleagues. I wonder if Martin or his staff took the time to review these documents, because they make clear that journals are required to disclose funding, avoid bias, and aim at representing a diversity of voices in scientific research.
This letter seems to be not just misinformed, but I also see it as part of a troubling trend of undermining science for political gain. At the beginning of the year, an editorial in the journal Nature described the actions by the current presidential administration as “taking a wrecking ball to science” and urged the global community to take action. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., lists what it calls “documented attacks” on science on its website and has started a Science Emergency Fund to defend the critical work in scientific research and across the United States.
Every day, stories about research institutions losing vital funding for critical research impacting everyday Americans or facing the loss of research funds are splattered throughout the news. Projects like Grant Watch are documenting the termination of research grants, specifically by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Science leaders such as Sudip Parikh, PhD, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that promotes cooperation among scientists and defends scientific freedom, are tirelessly advocating to stop the defunding of science as proposed by current legislation.
When public officials, like Martin, cast doubt on rigorous research, they do more than question science, they also undermine public trust in facts and fuel division for political gain. We need scrutiny in science, but it must be grounded in a shared commitment to truth, not ideology. Let’s protect the integrity of research — not use it as a pawn in partisan games.
Disclaimer: This article reflect the thoughts or opinions of its author and may not represent the thoughts or values of UMB as an institution.
Isabell Cserno May, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Graduate Studies, where she directs and teaches in the Science Communication certificate program. May also directs the UMB Writing Center and is passionate about equity-based and social justice-oriented pedagogies.