In February, this journal's editorial office received a letter from an attorney in the USA that referred to an order of a US district court and warned us not to publish papers from a NIOSH/NCI study on the effects of diesel exhaust in a cohort of miners. The letter's author is a Washington, DC, lawyer and lobbyist who has represented industry in challenging occupational health and safety regulations, and we have since learnt that he has sent similar letters to other journals in the UK and the USA.1 The direct impacts of the letter and the court's order are negligible for OEM at this stage. The papers in question have been submitted to other journals and it is doubtful whether a US judge's order would restrain OEM as its corporate presence is based in the UK as part of the BMJ Publishing Group. However, the broader implications...]]>