More Fake Journals From Elsevier

daemonburrito writes "Last week, we learned about Elsevier publishing a bogus journal for Merck. Now, several librarians say that they have uncovered an entire imprint of 'advertorial' publications. Excerpta Medica, a 'strategic medical communications agency,' is an Elsevier division. Along with the now infamous Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, it published a number of other 'journals.' Elsevier CEO Michael Hansen now admits that at least six fake journals were published for pharmaceutical companies."

Comments

More reason to ditch publishers

[langelgjm]

Interesting. This militates against the argument that the "imprimatur" of a publisher always adds to a journal's legitimacy, and is one more reason to ditch money-grubbing publishers for open-access journals.

That is really a huge blow to the reputation of Elsevier... of course they publish hundreds (thousands?) of journals, so in absolute terms maybe it is not that big a deal, but still...

Can this be considered fraud?

[msobkow]

The journals seem to be intended to mislead the reader into believing that research and reporting has been done which has not. Does that not constitute fraud? Would there not be an option to have the publisher and the pharmacorp charged with fraud?

Re:Bad Feeling

[causality]

I have a bad feeling that, as people start poking around, even more stories like this are going to be uncovered. Sure, Elsevier is admitting to six fake journals. What's the over/under for it being 20?

Now, I wonder if Merck makes a drug to get rid of bad feelings like this. I'll have to check an Elsevier journal to find out.

I'm not a doctor or any sort of medical practitioner. So, the following is just my personal opinion.

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most corrupt industries in existence today. I actually find pharmacology quite interesting, especially the idea that physical chemicals can impact the nonphysical/intangible mind. Seeing the way this industry operates made me decide some time ago that I can't in any good conscience join up with them, fascinating though the subject may be.

There is one simple principle here: pharmaceutical companies cannot make any profit from healthy people. That's why you have so many "designer diseases" like Restless Leg Syndrome. Just think about how many people you know who do not regularly take some sort of prescription medication; they are becoming a minority. No one really questions this. No one with any sort of media presence is asking whether the fact that the general population is getting sicker and not healthier indicates that our medical system is fundamentally broken. Of course, you don't have to be much of a thinking man to realize that the media is not your friend, otherwise they'd ask questions like this and would go wherever the facts lead them, monied interests be damned.

I was in my doctor's office once and I asked his staff a question. I asked her why it is that pharmaceutical companies advertise prescription-only medicines to the general public, since after all you are supposed to ask your doctor what is wrong and have that doctor determine what medicine you need. There's little room in that process for brand recognition on the part of the patient. She flat-out told me "because the pharmaceutical companies RUN this entire industry". I salute the honesty of her answer. I was half expecting some sort of "party line" on that one.

Re:Bad Feeling

[langelgjm]

There is one simple principle here: pharmaceutical companies cannot make any profit from healthy people.

They also can't make any profit off the majority of sick people in the world, either, because those people have no money. That's how you get situations like this:

We found that, of 1393 new chemical entities marketed between 1975 and 1999, only 16 were for tropical diseases and tuberculosis. (Trouiller et al., "Drug Development for Neglected Diseases: a Deficient Market and a Public-Health Policy Failure." The Lancet 359, no. 9324 (June 22, 2002): 2188-2194.

(Ironically, I got that through ScienceDirect). Yet while the pharma giants won't focus R&D on neglected diseases, they'll also lobby against any attempts to set up alternative incentive systems designed to stimulate research into those disease... probably too afraid that the alternatives will be more successful than the current patent system, and people will start to wonder why more drugs can't be developed that way.

Re:And...

[Froboz23]

I know one good thing that will come out of this. I'm blacklisting Merck.

Before reading this article, I was neutral toward this company. I didn't really know much about them. But now I know they are not to be trusted. I will make my best effort to avoid using any of their drugs, and I will be wary if any doctor tries to prescribe a Merck drug to me. And more importantly, I will not own any of their stock. Just this week I was reviewing my stock portfolio to do some more dollar cost averaging into the market rebound. Merck is now purged from my portfolio, and I will keep an eye out for it in any index or mutual funds that I buy. They are now in the same list as Monsanto.

I will also pass this article along to my fiends and co-workers. Hopefully they too will take this into consideration before buying their stock.

The justification for not owning their stock is not just moral. It is an economic concern as well. If a company behaves this recklessly, it puts itself at economic risk, as already demonstrated by it's multi-billion dollar Vioxx recall.

All major corporations are engaged in morally dubious behavior of one kind or another. But when it becomes this excessive and blatant, I have to draw a line.