A professional medical association has threatened to sue a scientific journal over an article accusing the group of pandering to industry.

The article was published in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (IJOEH), and it claims that members of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) have "deeply embedded" conflicts of interest. The article, by the IJOEH's editor and members of the journal's editorial board, also says that the ACOEM, "provides a legitimizing professional association for company doctors, and continues to provide a vehicle to advance the agendas of their corporate sponsors."

The 23-page article claims that ACOEM members employed by the petrochemical industry blocked the association from taking a stand against global warming and calls the society's journal, the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM), "decidedly pro-industry in its editorial policy and publications."

The ACOEM fired back at the IJOEH, publishing on its website an open letter from the group's president, Robert McLellan. He writes that the IJOEH article "offers what is essentially a giant conspiracy theory involving virtually all sectors of our profession." According to a story on The Chronicle of Higher Education's website, the ACOEM has demanded that the IJOEH retract the article and has threatened a lawsuit against the journal. In a letter to IJOEH's publisher, Sandy Lovegrove, McLellan calls the article and an accompanying essay, "irresponsible, unfair and grossly distorting of the facts."

Lovegrove responded to McLellan's letter, writing: "This article was peer reviewed, its content is considered important, and it has been published openly in the hope that it will provide important information to the community." Lovegrove also explains that the ACOEM denied the article's authors access to files which they requested for fact checking before the article was published.

This is not the first time that the ACOEM's journal has been called out for questionable activities. In 2005, we reported on a researcher whose editorial critiquing an industry-funded study from another journal was rejected from JOEM and was later published when he bought two pages of ad space in which to print the article.

McLellan has submitted a letter to the editor of IJOEH that attempts to defend the ACOEM.