A name you can trust - Elsevier

Not any more. In the field of Scientific Journals, the publisher Elsevier is well known. Here is the page where they list all of the journals they publish -- I didn't count them but it looks like two or maybe three thousand titles. The key thing with a Scientific Journal is that the articles are peer-reviewed. If you come up with something spiffy, you send it into a Journal, they send copies of your paper to five or six people in the same field who make notes on what you are saying and if they agree that you are on the right track, the paper gets published. This is how Scientific Journals have been published for many years. Well, say hello to the Journal: "Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine" From BoingBoing:

Merck and Elsevier publish fake peer-reviewed journal
Pharmaceutical giant Merck paid science publishing juggernaut Elsevier to publish a fake peer-reviewed scientific journal, Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine.

What's wrong with this is so obvious it doesn't have to be argued for. What's sad is that I'm sure many a primary care physician was given literature from Merck that said, "As published in Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, Fosamax outperforms all other medications...." Said doctor, or even the average researcher wouldn't know that the journal is bogus. In fact, knowing that the journal is published by Elsevier gives it credibility!

These kinds of endeavors are not possible without help. One of The Scientist's most notable finds is a Australian rheumatologist named Peter Brooks who served on the "honorary advisory board" of this "journal". His take: "I don't think it's fair to say it was totally a marketing journal", apparently on the grounds that it had excerpts from peer-reviewed papers. However, in his entire time on the board he never received a single paper for peer-review, but because he apparently knew the journal did not receive original submissions of research. This didn't seem to bother him one bit. Such "throwaways" of non-peer reviewed publications and semi-marketing materials are commonplace in medicine. But wouldn't that seem odd for an academic journal? Apparently not. Moreover, Peter Brooks had a pretty lax sense of academic ethics any way: he admitted to having his name put on a "advertorial" for pharma within the last ten years, says The Scientist. An "advertorial"? Again, language unfamiliar to us in the academic publishing world, but apparently quite familiar to the pharmaceutical publishing scene.

The quoted text was from this blog: blog.bioethics.net Well now, it seems there are other "Journals" out there. From today's BoingBoing:

Elsevier has an entire division to publishing fake advertorial "peer-reviewed" journals
Remember the revelation that pharma giant Merck had paid Elsevier to publish a fake peer-reviewed journal that promoted its products? Turns out Elsevier has an entire division devoted to publishing fake journals for money:

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."

The first one really hits home with me -- they are touting Fosamax. The hip replacement surgery I needed last year was a result of Avascular Necrosis. I am on a few email lists and the overwhelming cause of this disease is exposure to steroids and to Phosphorus. I had bad skin growing up in Pittsburgh, PA back when the mills were in full operation with no thought to pollution. A few weeks on Prednisone cleared me right up. The connection between Prednisone and AVN was not known at that time. Fossamax is just a form of Phosphorus marketed to women who are candidates for Osteoporosis. It does work for that but it can also cause AVN of the jaw. Phossy Jaw has been known for about 100 years -- odd that Merck would ignore the historical record. Even odder that they would resort to astroturfing a Scientific Journal to advertise it. Elsevier just jumped the shark...