The Trump administration now appears to be targeting medical journals, questioning at least three different publications about how they represent “competing viewpoints” and assess the influence of funding organizations like the National Institutes of Health on submitted papers, MedPage Today reported.

Republican activist Edward Martin Jr., who is currently serving as interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., sent a letter to CHEST Journal and at least two other unnamed publications earlier this month demanding answers to a series of questions about their processes and practices.

“It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals and publications like CHEST Journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates—that is, that they have a position for which they are advocating either due to advertisement (under postal code) or sponsorship (under relevant fraud regulations),” Martin wrote. “The public has certain expectations and you have certain responsibilities.”

The letter then requested answers by May 2 to questions including “Do you accept articles or essays from competing viewpoints?“ and “How do you handle allegations that authors of works in your journals may have misled their readers?”

“I am also interested to know if publishers, journals, and organizations with which you work are adjusting their method of acceptance of competing viewpoints,” Martin wrote. “Are there new norms being developed and offered?”

CHEST is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American College of Chest Physicians that produces articles on such subjects as pulmonary hypertension, lung cancer and obstructive sleep apnea.

Martin’s letter “should send a chill down the spine of scientists and physicians,” Adam Gaffney, a pulmonary and critical care physician who has published in CHEST, told MedPage Today. “It is yet another example of the Trump administration’s effort to control academic inquiry and stifle scientific discourse—an administration, it warrants mentioning, that has embraced medical misinformation and pseudoscience to reckless effect. Journal editors should join together and publicly renounce this as yet more thinly guised anti-science political blackmail.”

JT Morris, a senior supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told MedPage Today that the First Amendment clearly protects CHEST’s independence.

“A publication’s editorial decisions are none of the government’s business, whether it’s a newspaper or a medical journal,” he said. “Like with any bully, the best response is to stand up to them—and that includes officials who try to intimidate Americans into parroting the government’s view. The First Amendment packs a powerful punch, and it has these medical journals’ backs.”