Attorney Paul Shaw Comments on Reviewer Confidentiality in Science Magazine Article
Verrill Dana attorney Paul Shaw was quoted in an online article featured in the publicationScienceentitled "In Unusual Move, Judge Grants CrossFit's Request to Unmask Anonymous Peer Reviewers." The article discusses a legal dispute between the branded fitness regimen company, CrossFit, and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). The plaintiff, CrossFit, alleged that the injury statistic cited in a 2013 paper that appeared in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research was intentionally skewed by the journal's publisher, NSCA, a competitor in the fitness business.
As a result, a state judge in California is now forcing the journal publisher to breach its confidentiality policy and identity the article's anonymous peer reviewers.
Paul Shaw, who has represented The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) for 17 years, commented on his experience fielding subpoenas requesting information about peer-reviewed articles, "Invariably, one of the requests will be for the identity of and memoranda done by the peer reviewers."
