Letter of resignation sent to the following officials with the Frontiers in Pharmacology journal:
- Frederick Fenter | Chief Executive Editor, Manager
- Paolo Montuschi | Respiratory Pharmacology Chief Editor
- Judyta Sorokowska-Yammin | Director of Publishing Operations
- Elena Vicario | Head of Research Integrity, London Office
"It is with sincere regret that we write at this time to resign from our roles as founding topic editors for the Frontiers in Pharmacology Research Topic 'Treating COVID-19 With Currently Available Drugs'...
The Topic had been created with the aim to contribute to identification of better and more effective pharmacological treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic by suggesting repurposed drugs. Our goal has been to reduce the barriers to publishing earlier stage clinical research regarding repurposed drugs, and in this way help reduce the terrible burden of global death due to COVID-19...
The recent extraordinary and unprecedented actions by Frontiers in the rejection of the review manuscript 'REVIEW OF THE EMERGING EVIDENCE DEMONSTRATING THE EFFICACY OF IVERMECTIN IN THE PROPHYLAXIS AND TREATMENT OF COVID-19' and the original research manuscript 'HOSPITALIZED COVID-19 PATIENTS TREATED WITH CELECOXIB AND HIGH DOSE FAMOTIDINE ADJUVANT THERAPY SHOW SIGNIFICANT CLINICAL RESPONSES' after review and acceptance of each manuscript by four/five well qualified peer reviewers (during final validation) is what has prompted our collective resignation...
Upon reviewing these events, some might conclude that the journal is practicing extraordinary and unprecedented censorship of fully peer reviewed manuscripts...
The Guest editors reject any assertion that scientific integrity was compromised or breached during the review process for either of these submissions, or that this special edition has not been managed with full integrity, except in the case of the unethical breach of the journal itself and its senior management in performing an extraordinary, arbitrary and capricious post-peer review process.
At this point, based on these many actions, we are unable to assure scientific integrity of the peer review process on the part of the journal for this special topic. Our time and that of the peer reviewers has been donated to the journal, and our reputations used without compensation. We ask to be removed from association with this special topic area, that an apology be issued to ourselves and our respective institutions for the actions of the journal in this matter, and that the special topic (which we had developed with full approval by the journal) be discontinued effective immediately. Having communicated to Frontiers that this would be our collective action if corrections were not made to this extraordinary re-review process, Frontiers has elected to expel each of the guest editors from any ongoing or future role
as editors, and to close down and wipe all electronic evidence that the special topic had ever even been approved or had manuscripts submitted under the topic approved. This decision was disclosed in email communications with all corresponding authors of published, approved, or pending manuscripts, but not with the guest editors who had created the topic and solicited and managed review of the manuscripts.
The scientific process requires fair, open, and transparent peer review to proceed effectively and efficiently – particularly at this time and for this topic. The actions of 'Frontiers' in this matter clearly violate well established norms and processes for peer review and publication of scientific works and intellectual contributions, and instead have substituted a unilateral, arbitrary, and capricious process. On behalf of our peers, our institutions, and our scientific and medical colleagues we cannot allow this precedent to remain unchallenged. In our opinion, these unfortunate events constitute gross editorial misconduct by 'Frontiers'."
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