According to an online News story at the Nature website (doi 10.1038/news.2009.99; 16 February), The Swedish Research Council is becoming involved in a row over academic freedom after a peer-reviewed journal removed a published paper — by two Swedish academics — from its website following a threat of legal action from the company whose technology the research criticized. The News story describes how the paper ‘Charlatanry in forensic speech science: a problem to be taken seriously’, was first published in the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law in December 2007. In it, the authors examine voice-analysis technologies, stating there is no scientific basis for one of them. Lawyers for the manufacturers complained and the paper was removed from the journal website (the abstract and an explanatory note from the editors remain). Several members of the Swedish Research Council have signed an expression of concern about the removal, which according to the journal was for reasons of possible defamation rather than for any problem with the accuracy of the scientific content.

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