MEDICAL JOURNAL EDITOR IS ASKED TO STEP DOWN

Dispute over use of name forces resignation

BOSTON -- The top editor of the New England Journal of Medicine has been
forced out in a dispute over the use of its name to sell consumer
newsletters and other publications.

Dr. Jerome P. Kassirer was asked to step down, friends say, because of his
long-standing opposition to the Massachusetts Medical Society's practice of
launching new magazines and advertising them as being from "the publishers
of the New England Journal of Medicine."

They said Kassirer and other editors oppose tying its reputation to consumer
health letters and other magazines that have no real connection to the New
England Journal's standards or editing.

The New England Journal, founded in 1812, is regarded by many as the world's
most prestigious medical publication. Each week, it is a source of news
about the latest breakthroughs in medicine.

The Massachusetts Medical Society, which owns the Journal, said it will not
renew Kassirer's contract as editor, a job he has held for eight years.
Kassirer will give up his job Sept. 1.

Medical society officials said Kassirer's performance as editor was never
questioned, and both sides said the society never interfered with his
decisions about what to print.

"This is an honest difference of opinion," said Frank Fortin, a medical
society spokesman. "We are trying to be responsive to a new world of medical
publishing."

In January, Dr. George Lundberg was fired from the Journal of the American
Medical Association, another of the world's most distinguished medical
journals, for publishing a 1991 survey of college students on whether oral
sex constitutes sex. The AMA objected to the timing of publication to
coincide with President Clinton's impeachment trial.

During Kassirer's tenure, the New England Journal's circulation reached
about 240,000, with an annual subscription cost of $129.

Dr. Marshall N. Kaplan of New England Medical Center, a part-time Journal
editor, said many at the magazine fear that "somehow those who look at it as
one part of a business will gradually destroy the primacy of the New England
Journal without even knowing what they are doing."

However, Fortin said the society will do nothing to harm the New England
Journal's reputation.

Fortin disputed parallels, which some drew, to the furor two years ago over
the American Medical Association's abortive deal to endorse Sunbeam Corp.
products.