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| Volume 48, Number 3, Fall 1999 |
by Carol Cruzan Morton
Old controversies simmer and new ones have erupted in the Massachusetts Medical Society's business ventures over use of the name of its only peer-reviewed publication for original research, the New England Journal of Medicine.
At its semi-annual meeting in early November, the society rejected proposals by NEJM editors and their defenders to give future editors the total control over the marketing of the journal's name and logo that interim editor-in-chief Marcia Angell, M.D., now enjoys, reported Richard Knox in the Boston Globe.
Instead, the society passed another resolution promising that the NEJM editor-in-chief will retain responsibility for "any print or electronic publications identified as the New England Journal of Medicine or as coming from the editors" of the journal. Angell said that resolution side-stepped issues of using the journal's prestige to market "other products and ventures," the Globe reported.
But in a concession to journal supporters, the society voted to set up a formal committee of medical school and public health deans to arbitrate future disputes between the NEJM editor-in-chief and the physician group's officers and staff.
Jack Evjy, M.D., the medical society's president, had framed the issue as a "struggle for the very control of the New England Journal of Medicine" by a small group of academicians and editors against the society's mostly private practitioner membership, reported the Globe.
Former medical society president Allan Gorell, M.D., who had been an enthusiastic proponent of new publishing ventures by the society, told the Globe that he had changed his mind and that the issue was not a power struggle. "We can act as 'Mass Medical, Inc.' or we can engage in public policy formation," said Gorell. "We can't do both."
That brought a blistering reply from society trustee James Kenealy, M.D., reports the Globe. "Three years ago we were told that . . . new publishing ventures were necessary to advance our educational mission," he told the Globe. "I bought it hook, line, and sinker, and I believe it to this day. Now I'm being told I was a fool, that these ventures are too entrepreneurial."
In another action, the medical society's ethics committee announced that it had unanimously cleared society official Barry Manuel, M.D., of any conflict of interest stemming from his position on medical society councils at a time when the society granted exclusive rights to NEJM content to HealthGate, a Burlington, MA, Internet company.
In late October, the Wall Street Journal had reported that Manuel owned 1.4 million shares in the start-up company, a stake that could be valued at more than $10 million at the upcoming initial public offering of stock. Manuel apparently did not lobby for the HealthGate agreement, according to the Wall Street Journal, nor did HealthGate's chief executive, William Reece, who is Manuel's brother-in-law, use his familial connection in pitching the deal.
Despite the exoneration, Manuel resigned from the search committee for a new NEJM editor-in-chief, saying his presence was becoming "a distraction" to the panel's efforts, reported the Globe. Arnold Relman, M.D., a former long-time editor-in-chief of NEJM, had served briefly as a HealthGate director long after he stepped down from the NEJM post, the Wall Street Journal reported. But he told the Journal that he decided in August to dissolve his ownership in stock options valued at $500,000 or more because he lives with Angell, who as NEJM interim editor-in-chief is in a position to influence the success of the HealthGate venture.
Based in Boston, Carol Cruzan Morton splits her time between her freelance business and her science-writing job at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a major teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.