In October 2018, over 170 academics signed a letter to the journal complaining after it ran an opinion piece by
Aseem Malhotra. The group argued that the article made the "misleading and wrong" statement that
saturated fat did not cause
heart disease.
Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of
The BMJ, defended the journal's right to challenge "the status quo in some settings". Another conflict of interest was raised by Pielke et al. about the accuracy of a study published in the journal later used in the drafting of
IAAF regulations on permitted testosterone levels for female athletes. A former editor, Paul McCrory, was found to have plagiarised one of more articles he wrote in the journal around 2005, forcing one retraction and public criticism of the governance of the journal during this period. ==References==