Sighs of relief were heard from editors after a court ruling denying Pfizer access to confidential peer-review documents from the New England Journal of Medicine (see Nature 452, 6–7; 2008).
On Nature Medicine’s blog Spoonful of medicine, Juan-Carlos Lopez expresses concern that the court’s decision was strongly influenced by Pfizer’s inability to produce sufficiently convincing arguments. If a party made a better case to see journals’ confidential information, he muses, would the court rule in favour of the complainant, setting a devastating precedent?
Nature journals protect the anonymity of their peer reviewers. But as the Pfizer case shows, policies are subject to testing in the courts. Although editors ask peer reviewers to state their opinions of a paper plainly, they also advise them to avoid offensive language; remarks that may cause needless offence; or comments that reveal confidential information about other matters. These guidelines strongly reduce the likelihood of a journal being forced to reveal the identity of a reviewer.
Nature 452, xiii; 3 April 2008