The editor-in-chief will step down this month following the release of a podcast in February that suggested systemic racism does not exist in medicine.

The issue’s guest editors resign after falling out with the publisher over the management of papers, including a rejected manuscript on ivermectin, that were submitted for a special issue on drug repurposing for COVID-19.

The move follows widespread criticism of the episode and its promotion, and the resignation of the podcast’s host.

Kennedy, who succumbed to COVID-19, served as commissioner of the FDA and editor-in-chief of Science, and is credited with helping to transform Stanford into a top research university.

When submitting manuscripts to Western journals, authors face issues that go beyond language barriers.

More than 70 editors left the Journal of Molecular Medicine after SpringerNature closed an editorial office and selected a new editor-in-chief.