Opinion | What RFK Jr. Got Right About Academic Publishing

"Although Kennedy has no experience with academic publishing, his comments echoed concerns voiced by the former New England Journal of Medicine editors Marcia Angell and Jerome Kassirer. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, went further, calling the pharma-journal relationship “parasitic.” It was in that context that Kennedy floated — almost offhandedly — the idea of the government starting its own journals.

Kennedy’s proposal — government-run publishing — would be both impractical and risky, given the threat of political interference in academic speech. Still, his criticism highlights a deeper truth: The current model, dominated by for-profit publishers, is riddled with inefficiencies, inequities, and excessive profiteering. It’s time to reimagine scholarly publishing around the needs of science, not shareholders...."