Obesity Reviews response: they discontinued fast-track fees

[Alex Holcombe]

Dear Dr Holcombe,

First, I am not clear who you are but this is the first email I have
received from you. You refer to an email of 26th April but that was
never received. I do understand though that you had contacted Dick
Atkinson, Editor of the International Journal of Obesity on this
matter.
Second, as you may or may not be aware, I became interim editor of
Obesity Reviews on January 1st of this year and was confirmed into the
position in Apri. In this short time, I have addressed numerous
problems that needed urgent attention. I had noted the provision for
expedited review that was available in Obesity Reviews. This is a
little used facility and it was difficult for me to understand why it
was needed in a review journal. All editors have the option of fast
tracking a publication of an article once it has been peer reviewed if
they think it is urgent to get it into the public domain. However, at
the meeting of the IASO Executive Committee that was held last month
in Istanbul, I requested that the IASO Executive Committee should
review this "fast-tracking" provision. I did not think it was
necessary for the journal to have it and I recognized that it as only
available to those who had the finances to pay for it. It was the
unanimous decision of the IASO Executive Committee that this provision
for fast tracking of manuscript reviews should be discontinued. Hence,
it is no longer an available option for this journal.
You should recognize that it will take a couple of months probably to
get reference to this removed from the Instructions to Authors that
appears on the inside cover of the journal's cover page, but the
facility has been discontinued.

I hope this has clarified the position of Obesity reviews on this
matter.

Sincerely,

David York PhD
Editor in Chief
Obesity Reviews

Dear Dr. York,

Thank you, this is excellent news!

I can't find any records of me contacting Dick Atkinson of the
International Journal of Obesity, but I'd like to thank him for
alerting you to this issue. Below is the 26 April email you apparently
didn't receive, although I don't think it matters anymore.

Best
Alex

P.S. You wondered who I am- I'm an academic at Sydney University but
have not been writing these emails in that capacity (rather, I am
involved in this as a concerned citizen), so I didn't include that
affiliation in my emails.