Dr. George Lundberg, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association for 17 years, was fired Jan. 15 by Dr. E. Ratcliffe Anderson, the AMA's new chief executive. The dismissal was delivered by Anderson in a phone call to Lundberg's home.
Anderson said his decision to dismiss the editor was precipitated by Lundberg's inclusion in the Jan. 20 JAMA of an eight-year-old piece of research from the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. That research found that 59 percent of 599 Midwest undergraduates did not think oral-genital contact could be considered "sex."
Dr. Lundberg defended publishing the research on the grounds of public health concerns. Dr. Anderson, however, perceived a political motivation in printing the research during the impeachment proceedings. Dr. Anderson apparently did not think it was appropriate to publish research that revealed that the opinion of the majority of the surveyed students eight years ago was in tune with the president's recent assertion that the physical relationship he had with Monica Lewinsky did not constitute "sex."
However, Chicago Sun-Times reporters Howard Wolinsky and Mary Houlihan noted that Anderson "had been gunning for Lundberg" over Lundberg's recent critical comments aired on "60 Minutes" about doctors covering their mistakes by discouraging autopsies. Mr. Wolinsky, you'll recall, co-authored the critical opus The Serpent on the Staff: The Unhealthy Politics of the American Medical Association (see DC, July 15, 1994.)
Wolinsky and Houlihan further reported that Dr. Lundberg was taken to task by the Illinois State Medical Society in 1990 for "doctor bashing" when he criticized MDs for catching the "greed virus."
And when the November 11, 1998 issue of JAMA highlighted alternative approaches to medicine, one imagines Dr. Lundberg's stock dropped further in the eyes of the AMA chief executive (see "JAMA Goes Alternative," DC, Dec. 14, 1998).
Dr. Arnold Relman, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times reproving the "control a political organization such as the AMA has over its journal."
Dr. Lundberg has been credited by some for turning around the fortunes of the JAMA since he took over the editorial reins in 1982. He's also been lauded for the quality of the research published in JAMA.
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