The Trump administration has abruptly canceled several U.S. science agencies’ subscription access to Springer Nature journals. The move, which will end easy access to the journals for agency staff scientists, follows the administration’s recent criticism of academic journals which accused the White House of bias. The two best known and influential Springer journals are Nature and Scientific American, but over 3,000 science journals are produced by the publisher.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told news media that “all [subscription] contracts … are terminated or no longer active.”
in May, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said, with his usual inverted logic, that he might ban scientists employed by HHS from publishing in leading peer-reviewed medical journals, calling the journals “corrupt” and under the influence of pharmaceutical companies.