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Scientific journals' responsibility in shaping public health policy

The ultimate goal of a scholarly journal is to publish the highest quality scientific data, thus informing the research community and public at large about the latest findings. Because of the technical language and the required high degree of methodological detail, scientific publications are addressed first of all to other scientists. The public at large has to rely on intermediary messengers of scientific information, including scientists themselves and popular science writers, who ‘filter’ and ‘digest’ the technical data to make them ‘palatable’ for lay recipients. Among the most important and influential recipients of the scientific information are governmental and international policy makers, who are not trained to evaluate technical data, so the scientific information they use has to be first translated and summarized by advisory bodies (Brownson et al., 2009). While all areas of research are equally important, public health policy influences well-being of each of us and populations alike, and mistakes may have disastrous consequences. So it is crucially important that the health policy makers can rely on the best possible information provided by expert and impartial advisors, with rigorous adherence to the data quality. Naturally, the advisors base their opinion primarily on scientific reports published in scholarly bio-medical journals, which have to strive to maintain rigor and reproducibility, as discussed in another editorial in this issue of Andrology (Carrell & Rajpert-De Meyts, 2013). Once a while policy makers face a difficult and controversial issue, especially if the research area is novel, medical problem multifactorial and explanation of causes not straight-forward. Scientists, including those sitting in advisory bodies may have different views and interpret the data differently. An example of such a difficult issue in the public health is the recent debate on whether or not man-made endocrine disruptors (including pharmaceuticals) are responsible for changing trends in a number of diseases, such as cancer of endocrine organs, disorders of sex development, asthma, allergy, and behavioural disorders. This particular topic is of great interest for andrologists, because endocrine disruption has been implicated as one of the aetiologies of some disorders of the male reproductive system. According to recent reviews of the state of knowledge in the field prepared for international institutions and scientific societies (Zoeller et al., 2012; Bergman et al., 2013), there is growing evidence for such a causative link and there is a need for new and tightened regulation of endocrine disruptors. Where the evidence is not yet strong, one should err on the side of the health protection rather than risking exposing people. The main points of concern were recently formulated by a group of scientists in the so-called Berlaymont Declaration on Endocrine Disrupters (http://www.ipcp.ch/IPCP_Berlaymont.html), in which they appeal to the European Commission for action. The Declaration has provoked a public debate, including comments on the pages of scientific journals. One of the strongest opposing statements was signed by several expert toxicologists and has been since re-printed in a number of toxicology journals (Dietrich et al., 2013). Now a number of other scientists, mainly endocrinologists, came forward with their response which we support and have decided to publish also in this issue of Andrology (Gore et al., 2013). We believe that scientific journals and Andrology need to take part in debates that may potentially influence the health policy. We welcome our readers to comment and take part in this debate.