Oooh....Someone Is Going To Get It!

The AMA is now probing that JAMA alleged threatened a researcher who had found out that it had screwed up. This whole thing is hysterical yet serious. With the AMA getting involved, it reminds of my mom saying to me, "Just wait until your father comes home!" JAMA and its editors are going to get hammered because they are wrong. Dr. Jonathan Leo, from Tennessee, was able to spot a conflict about one of their authors just by doing a Google search. An article in the WSJ outlines a lot of this but KevinMD had the story first and his version details how Editor in Chief Catherine DeAngelis has really made a complete idiot of herself. Here is a summary of some of the things she has supposedly said and done:

• Threatened Lincoln Memorial University in a telephone conversation earlier this month saying she would "ruin the reputation of our medical school" if he didn't force Dr. Leo to retract the BMJ letter and stop talking to the media.


• Accused the researcher of a "serious breach of confidentiality" by writing about the problems with the JAMA study while the medical journal was still investigating the matter.


• “This guy is a nobody and a nothing” she said of Leo. “He is trying to make a name for himself. Please call me about something important.” She added that Leo “should be spending time with his students instead of doing this.”


• When asked if she called his superiors and what she said to them, DeAngelis said “it is none of your business.”

So what have we learned from all of this? One, DeAngelis will probably lose her job over this. Two, some basic communication training would have helped her. Three, JAMA is really not as important as it thinks it is.

Though this has turned out to be a sad situation, I cannot help but laugh at how JAMA has tried to be mobster on this. When you read their statements it is almost like they are going to send Paulie Walnuts out to "whack" of Dr. Leo. I can just see the AMA discovering transcripts of recorded messages from a hitman talking toDeAngelis:

DeAngelis: Is this Vito?

Vito: No names.

DeAngelis: Is it done?

Vito: Dat thing..with dat guy...he won't bother you no more. Leo sleeps wit da fishes.