Madness and Text: The Psychiatric Paper as a Business and as a Means of Censorship

Abstract

The journals are basically the only channel through the scientists can make the result of their research know to their colleagues. Scientific journals select the information they publish and guarantee its quality by means of a double blind procedure of censorship by peers. If on the one hand this procedure seems logical as a method for including a study within a consolidated scientific field it is also true that it can function as a mechanism for censorship. If, furthermore, a scientific field such as pharmacology is intimately linked to the business interest of large companies then the companies and journals not only became providers of guidance, but also censors who conceal part of the truth and obstruct scientific advance to defend the economic interest of their patents.