Researchers boycott journal

Researchers slated to contribute to a November issue of an occupational medicine journal have withdrawn their submissions in a boycott stemming from the publication's refusal to include a study in the same issue claiming that IBM employees at semiconductor plants have higher-than-expected cancer death rates.

According to the study, which The Scientist has obtained, employees were more likely than the general population to die of brain, skin, lymphatic, and hematopoietic tissue cancers. The paper had been peer reviewed before acceptance.

"Everyone has just shut down," said Joe LaDou, the guest editor of the November issue of Clinics in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. LaDou, of the University of California School of Medicine at San Francisco, told The Scientist that the trouble began after he told the journal he wanted to include the study, headed by Richard Clapp of the Boston University School of Public Health, in the issue, which was concentrating ...