Former editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal who resigned or were dismissed following a dispute over editorial independence have established an independent, open-access general medical journal, Open Medicine. The first issue appeared online this morning.

At least six editors and most of the editorial board left the medical association’s journal last year following a dispute over the handling of a news report that investigated women’s access to emergency contraception in Canada (The Chronicle, March 31, 2006). The editors were forced to delete the investigative portion of the article following industry pressure to submit the news article to peer review, according to an editorial written by John Hoey, who was subsequently sacked.

Dr. Hoey is an associate editor of the new journal. He and his colleagues at Open Medicine hope to avoid such conflicts by operating independently of any medical association or commercial publisher. They will accept no advertisements for drugs or medical devices.

Open Medicine will publish original medical research, reviews, and articles on medical practice, policy, and ethics. Today’s issue reports on differences in medical outcomes between the United States and Canada, on how urban medical schools might attract students from rural areas, and on how the news media might better report the findings of medical research. —Susan Brown