Abstract
Disputes among academicians are not uncommon. They are usually played out in peer review journals in the form of point-and-counterpoint articles, or rebuttals and rejoinders. Recently however, a threat of litigation was issued against the authors of an article and the editor of the scientific journal which had accepted that article for publication following peer review. In this commentary we review legal commentary on litigation (and threats of litigation) involving academic disputes and literature regarding the values that underpin the scientific peer review process. We conclude that the use of threats of litigation to suppress the publication of articles accepted for publication in scientific journals strike at the heart of the peer review process, may have a chilling effect on the values at the core of academic freedom, and may potentially impede the scientific testing of various theories, models and products.
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