History of the Journal of the American College of Toxicology

Abstract

This companion article to the History of the American College of Toxicology also is written in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the American College of Toxicology (ACT). It relates how the official journal of the College evolved from a privately owned publication, the Journal of Environmental Pathology and Toxicology (JEPT), into publications owned and managed by the College and its Board, for the first 17 years as the Journal of the American College of Toxicology (JACT) and currently as The International Journal of Toxicology (IJT). It relates how the first journal focused on toxicological studies, potential cancer causes and concerns associated with environmental contamination and chemical exposure safety issues. It tells how this journal was replaced by one more broadly based that addressed multiple industries and regulatory approaches, accepted previously unpublishable “no-effect” studies, so important in eliminating unwarranted animal use, and provided review articles, rather than only original research. It also described how the JACT evolved into an international journal finally recognized for its quality reviews and peer-reviewed research. Each of the three journals that represented the College is described, as well as interesting events associated with their development and publication, including the activities and contributions of the first four editors in chief, Drs. Myron A. Mehlman, Mildred S. Christian, Robert M. Diener and Harihara Mehendale.

The following history of our journal is written as I (Figure 1) remember it, and as is identifiable in its various issues. Although competent to comment on the journal through Dr. Diener’s (Figure 2) term as Editor-in-Chief, I am less qualified to appropriately describe the journal’s progress since its third change in name and fourth change in publisher and editor. Thus, please accept my apologies in advance for my less than full account of the accomplishments of Dr. Mehendale (Figure 3), who so ably now serves as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Toxicology (IJT). I hope that the more extensive account of our early years will provide the reader with some enjoyment and appreciation of how we reached our current status.

Shortly after founding the American College of Toxicology, Dr. Myron A. Mehlman identified the Journal of Environmental Pathology and Toxicology (JEPT) as ACT’s official journal. JEPT served in this capacity from 1977 through 1981, and, like the journals of many other societies during this period, it was not owned by the American College of Toxicology (ACT). Rather, it was co-owned by the Editor and Publisher, Drs. Myron A. Mehlman and George H. Scherr, respectively (Dr. Scherr is most well known as the editor of the Journal of Irreproducible Results). JEPT had 9 Associate Editors, 11 Section Editors, 19 Associate Section Editors, and an Editorial Board of 118! Practically everyone in environmental toxicology or pathology was involved at some level, a few, it was later found, without their knowledge. It was published in six issues annually, with frequent special issues. The subscription rate was $33 per year. Manuscripts were rapidly reviewed, many summary documents were published, and a page charge of $25 covered publication costs. The 1979 volume of the journal is 9 inches thick and cited by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Many of the articles were health assessment documents regarding chemicals associated with the oil industry or environmental issues. The last issue published as ACT’s official journal was volume 5(1), in September, 1981. During its use by ACT as its official organ for publications, the journal was a money maker, albeit not for ACT.

Late in 1981, difficulties arose between the Editor and the Publisher that ultimately resulted in a law suit and subsequent difficulties for these individuals and ACT. ACT’s ability to publish its members’ articles was interrupted, it had no official journal and, perhaps most important, it was in the embarrassing position of being unable to obtain unpublished manuscripts apparently retained by Dr. Scherr. These manuscripts were never recovered, and the events surrounding these problems gravely tarnished ACT’s reputation and prospects.

A search committee was formed to identify a new Editor and Publisher. The committee included Drs. Arthur Furst, Robert G. Tardiff, and W. Gary Flamm. The new Editor had to have no prior association with any scandal, appropriate training and experience, and perhaps, complete lack of knowledge regarding how difficult it would be to reestablish trust with the scientific community or finance publication of the journal. At that time, I was serving on ACT’s Council, which met at the Secretariat of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology’s (FASEB’s) headquarters. Dr. Mehlman had hired Alexandra Ventura as our first Executive Director and found us office and meeting space at FASEB, which allowed us to use of this prestigious address, although we were then far beneath the criteria for FASEB membership. At the end of the Council meeting, Dr. Furst asked me if I would consider being the new Editor. I told Dr. Furst that I was willing to do so, provided he would act as my Associate Editor. Dr. Furst set up a dinner interview with the rest of the search group at the Cosmos Club, where he always stayed while in Washington (Art used to fly in from California for each Council meeting). Although women were not permitted into the formal areas of the Club, I was given access to the dining area, and we had a delightful dinner, while I naively gave away 10 years of my life.

Having been appointed Editor of the newly named Journal of the American College of Toxicology (JACT), I now needed to find a publisher. Mary Ann Liebert of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., was in the process of forming her publishing house in New York and looking for journals. We met in New York above Grand Central Station, discussed our mutual needs, agreed on the necessities, shook hands, and began a successful partnership that lasted throughout my editorship.

Next came the problem of having something to publish. Fortunately, Dr. Mehlman had just obtained a tentative agreement from the Cosmetic Ingredient Review Board (CIR) that they would publish their highly valued reviews in the ACT journal. Dr. Mehlman made me aware of this tentative agreement, and advised me to meet with the then editor of the CIR Reviews, Dr. Robert L. Elder. Dr. Elder agreed to supply ACT with two to three special issues annually. This was life saving for JACT, because CIR funds its special issues, which has continued to provide us with much of the year’s finances. Our new journal had a subscription rate of $75 annually (not payable by members), quarterly issues, and ownership by ACT.

The first issue was published in January, 1982. In contrast to the previous huge editorial board, JACT had only an Editor, myself, an Associate Editor, Dr. Furst, and an Editorial Board of six Section Editors, Dr. Robert G. Tardiff (Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment), Dr. E. Marshall Johnson (Reproductive Toxicology), Dr. W. Gary Flamm (Genetic Toxicology), Dr. Bruce K. Bernard (General Toxicology), Dr. Ronald W. Hart (Mechanisms of Toxicity), and Dr. Alan Goldberg (Development of Nonanimal Testing Techniques). By the second issue, Dr. Robert M. Diener joined Dr. Furst as a second Associate Editor, two additional Section Editors were added, Dr. Joseph C. Archos (Carcinogenesis) and Dr. Edward J. Calabrese (Epidemiology and Clinical Toxicology), and Assistant Editors were identified for seven of the eight sections. With the help of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) special issue, two CIR special issues, and one volume of basic research supplied by friends, four issues were published in our first year and we broke even on costs. At that time, the journal paid the Editor $500 per issue, the journal cost the society $5000 per issue, and CIR supported its special issues at approximately $10,000 each.

Having survived the first and most difficult year, we began our tradition of publishing symposia in the first issue of volume 2. This was a special issue of selected papers from the First World Congress on Toxicology and Environmental Health, a function of ACT that has since been discontinued. The program chairman and editor of the special issue was Dr. Si Duk Lee, who was then Associate Director of the Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office of EPA. Including this issue, we published a total of seven issues, of which three were basic research and four were special. Since both the Society and the journal were dependent on income from the journal’s special issues and advertisements, I was very pleased, because the journal had supplied income to the Society as well as covered its publication costs.

1984 produced six issues, two of which were special CIR issues and one of which was selected papers from our Fourth Annual Meeting. Three new section editors, Dr. Jane E. Goeke (Quality Assurance), Dr. Joseph Balkon (Forensic Toxicology), and Dr. Stewart Wong (Immunotoxicology), were added, expanding our interest areas. With volume 6 (1987), two additional Section Editors were added, Dr. E. Murl Bailey, Jr. (Veterinary Toxicology) and Dr. Wayne M. Galbraith (Book Review Editor, a function later filled by Dr. Furst). It should be noted that ACT was the first Toxicology Society to recognize the contribution of quality assurance professionals by accepting those qualified as full members. As the result of facilitating their acceptance in ACT, I was made an Honorary Member of the Society for Quality Assurance (SQA), a level that appears to now be included with Emeritus. For several years a Quality Assurance symposium was an integral part of our meetings, and until the SQA became so large that it could support its own journal, ACT provided SQA the only venue for their publications and an excellent means for training. In 1989, we instituted the annual publishing of the revised policy statement for the Care and Use of Animals in Toxicology, which was prepared by Dr. Shayne C. Gad and the newly formed Animals in Research Committee, and first published in our newsletter [8(2), summer 1988].

Although we consistently published at least six issues per year from 1984 on, we did not change our contract with Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., that required four issues annually. However, the acceptance of the journal was such that the subscription rate was increased to $110 annually. We remained dependent on special issues financing us and were not yet brave enough to ask for page charges or a review fee (we began to require a $50 review fee around 1989, as much higher fees had been charged by the previous journal and were being charged by other journals). Our reticence was reflected in our omission from the NIH citation list, which would not award us the previous journal’s place. Reasons given for two rejections included: (1) we published reviews and no effect studies; (2) we had irregular publication sizes and times; (3) we represented the second US toxicology society, and only one society was considered acceptable; and (4) “they will never be cited.” In our defense, the irregularity in publication schedule was somewhat perceived (the four contracted issues were always published), but from 1983 through the end of my editorship in 1992, we published at least five to seven issues per year. The timing of the special issues varied, depending upon various needs, and their sizes were generally larger than our 110-page regular issue. Regarding content and affiliation, there was not much we could do, since we felt it as important to provide review articles as to be an alternate society. Finally, although some lay the blame on our publisher for not being sufficiently large, during the 10 years JACT and Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., collaborated, JACT was given remarkable marketing support. Although it was true that other publishers might provide better financial support, in view of the struggles of JACT to meet publication requirements and those of a new publishing house in a competitive market, I believe our mutual survival for 10 years was commendable and I will always be grateful for the support we received during our infancy.

Beginning with volume 11, Dr. Robert M. Diener became the new Editor-in-Chief of JACT, with Dr. Furst and me as Associate Editors. Dr. Diener initiated multiple changes that greatly enhanced JACT. Among them were some changes in Section Editors and inclusion of a special annual issue of Acute Toxicity Data, edited by Dr. Richard A. Parent. Unfortunately, we were able to continue this issue for only 2 years; perhaps it was the $5 review fee instituted by Dr. Parent that kept acute toxicity data from being submitted for review.

During Dr. Diener’s 5-year term as Editor, there was continuing improvement in the quality of papers submitted for review and on-time publication of six issues annually. His efforts clearly raised JACT to a first-rate journal. Despite this achievement, NIH again rejected our application for inclusion in the citation lists, although our subscription price indicated that we were quality (now $187 per year for our bimonthly journal). One of the coups that Dr. Diener achieved was publishing supporting papers and some of the toxicology guideline issues generated by the International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH), which, along with several Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association symposia, remarkably increased our citation rate. Dr. Diener also laid the groundwork for the name change for the journal, noting that since we published internationally submitted manuscripts, it would be appropriate and beneficial to have the journal’s name reflect the breadth of information submitted.

Another of Dr. Diener’s achievements reflected his excellent negotiating skills. He successfully negotiated two new excellent contracts for the journal, first with Raven Press, later known as Lipincott-Raven, and later with our current publisher, Taylor & Francis. He also successfully managed the transition from one publisher to another, which remarkably increased JACT’s financial support and circulation, making it a more attractive venue for authors, libraries, and organizations wishing to publish. It must be noted that running JACT during the first 15 years was an extremely difficult task, because the Editor-in-Chief had to identify ways to finance at least half of the publication costs (approximately $30,000), with the remainder of publication costs paid by membership dues. Council assumed a break-even point would be achieved for publication costs and expected the journal to exceed this and produce profits that could be applied to other activities. Although I was able to meet the basic financial goals, Dr. Diener’s activities were able to provide JACT with new sources of financial support and enhanced standards and quality. An interesting note was that in addition to funding of various special issues, in 1995, he added a $30 review charge to the $50 review charge for each page over 20, which resulted in smaller manuscripts and more consistent sizing of the journal. When the journal was turned over to Dr. Mehendale, it was truly a financially stable, quality publication.

Dr. Harihara M. Mehendale began his term as Editor in Chief, in 1997, with volume 16, the first one under the new name, International Journal of Toxicology. Subscriptions to IJT, as published by Taylor & Francis, cost $280, a far cry from our initial subscription fee. The Editor-in-Chief now receives a sizeable subsidy from the publisher, which allows an academician to serve as Editor. When Dr. Mehendale assumed his responsibilities as Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Diener was named Editor Emeritus, and I was named Founding Editor. Dr. Bruce K. Bernard, our long-suffering General Toxicology Section Editor, was appointed the Associate Editor. The section editors were discontinued, and an editorial board of 33 members, 10 for countries other than the United States, was appointed. Shortly after the first year under Dr. Mehendale’s supervision, NIH citation for the journal was once more requested. This time it was granted, greatly increasing our prestige in the scientific community and our probability of being a selected reference publication. The papers submitted to the journal are now available to anyone who has access to the PubMed electronic literature retrieval service of the National Library of Medicine all around the world within 1 or 2 weeks of publication.

Dr. Mehendale has successfully continued timely publication of six regular issues annually in addition to three Cosmetic Ingredient Review Supplements. He expanded the peer-review process from the two peer-reviewers previously used, to three, so there is never a question of manuscript acceptability, and electronic edit-responses were initiated, which speeds the review process. Manuscript submission rates have tripled, review time is 5 to 6 weeks, and publication time is 10 to 14 weeks after submission. In addition, an increase in submitted manuscripts made the present 8½ × 11-inch professional journal size feasible and desirable. In 1999, Dr. Mehendale negotiated the publication of the journal in this professional size and a new cover design. The professional journal size and the two-column format has put the journal in a world-class of highly respected scientific journals. Dr. Mehendale has added both author and subject indexes, and abstracts of papers presented during the annual conferences. The journal now has added new sections of ‘Commentary’ and ‘Perspectives.’ Individual and institutional subscriptions and readership are rising and expanding both on the North American continent as well as internationally. The online version of the journal is available to all members of the ACT in addition to the printed version. The original blue and white cover also changed several times before reaching the current black and blue color (which really looks great, although considering this journal’s tale of tribulations, it may be representative of our rocky road to success). The content of the journal continues to be of high quality, and as he now serves his second 5-year term as Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Mehendale is to be congratulated on bringing the journal to its current stability, quality, profitability, and widespread readership.