Elsevier's fake journal had company

Scientific publisher Elseiver published not just one, but six fake medical journals between 2000 and 2005. Readers will recall our recent post about Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine which was surreptitiously created on behalf of and paid for by the pharmaceutical company Merck. The blog The Scholarly Kitchen now reports that there were five others (all in Australia) and expresses scepticism about the company's claim that all the employees involved are no longer with Elsevier:

[I]t’s unlikely that everyone involved has left the company, despite Elsevier’s assurances. Elsevier’s Asia-Pacific region was run at the time by an executive known to have approved all business decisions, exerting tight control over operations.

Despite the intrigue, a more fundamental question exists: Why would this happen? Among the developed countries, only the United States and New Zealand allow direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. [Note: Canada does not.] Perhaps this is part of the rationale for the journal format. The conspicuous lack of sponsorship along with the staid academic journal format appears intentional for the purposes of creating a semblance of an objective source of medical information.

Following the lawsuit over the drug Vioxx, an article appearing last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that Merck routinely prepared journal manuscripts for publication and subsequently recruited academically affiliated researchers to be the authors (dropping the company scientists in the process). In half of the manuscripts, industry affiliation or support was not disclosed on the manuscripts.

The fake publishing ordeal may have been a lucrative opportunity for Elsevier at the time. Right now, they appear to be paying the price.