ACS Passes the Buck and Blows Me Off

I heard back from the editor of “Cancer,” the ACS journal.  Read it for yourself.  I think I’m going to simply throw in the towel at this point.

Dear Dr.,

Thank you for sharing your concerns with me.

I would like to clarify that this study was not funded by the American Cancer Society. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health R01 grants CA109468, CA109461, CA109745, CA108473, and CA109475 and by the Brain Science Foundation and the Meningioma Mommas. Although the journal Cancer is owned by the American Cancer Society, it is editorially independent from the Society and thus articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions or recommendations of the American Cancer Society. (uh-huh)

I can confirm that this article did indeed undergo external peer review. (yeah, RIGHT!)

Our peer review process is as follows:

All submitted manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editor-in-Chief for quality, novelty (novelty?), scientific importance, and relevance to the journal’s general readership. Manuscripts with insufficient priority for publication or those that are outside the scope of the journal are rejected promptly. Manuscripts judged worthy of further consideration are sent to Section Editors. Manuscripts that pass the initial screening by the Editor-in-Chief and assigned Section Editor are reviewed by experts in the field. The Section Editors select the external peer reviewers and make the final decisions on manuscripts. This paper was reviewed by external experts in the field of neuro-oncology, the section under which the article was published. Cancer employs a single-blind review process in which peer reviewer identities are kept confidential, but author identities are made known to reviewers.

We encourage scientific debate within the journal. Since you have significant concerns about the design of the study, I would encourage you to submit a letter to the editor. (And, piss up a tree some more?)  Letters must not exceed 400 words in length, (Ha!  They don’t know me, do they?  400 words???)  must be limited to three authors and five references, and should not have tables or figures  (‘cuz we’ve already demonstrated that we don’t like real figures, aka “data.”). Financial associations or other potential conflicts of interest must be disclosed. The authors of the original publication will be given the opportunity to respond in the same issue of Cancer. Letters must be submitted electronically using Cancer’s ScholarOne Manuscripts Web site available at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cancer. (It seems you set the bar much higher for letters to the editor than you do for your published articles.)

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely yours,
Carissa

CANCER & CANCER CYTOPATHOLOGY Editorial Office
American Cancer Society
250 Williams Street
Atlanta, GA 30303
Email: [email protected]

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