Merck cooked up a phony, but real sounding, peer reviewed journal and published favorably looking data for its products in them. Merck paid Elsevier to publish such a tome, which neither appears in MEDLINE or has a website, according to The Scientist. 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!Update: It wasn't one fake journal. It was six fake journals. And as David reminds us, Elsevier is quite willing to play silly buggers with self-citing crackpots as long as they improve impact factors.
Now tell me again: Why do we submit papers to, referee papers for, and buy journals from these people? Some sort of misplaced sense of loyalty? Or some sad combination of apathy and inertia? What will it take for the research community to cut Elsevier loose?
Better alternatives, perhaps?
Full disclosure: I'm a coauthor of a paper that is about to appear in the SOCG 2008 special issue of CGTA, an Elsevier journal. If I'd been the sole author, I would have refused the invitation, but I don't have the right to unilaterally overrule my coauthors, especially the younger ones, who need the gold star in their CVs far more than I do. In retrospect, especially after reading this story, I wish we had refused the invitation. Or perhaps I should have just removed my name from the paper.
Update (May 16): Lots of good discussion at the Secret Blogging Seminar.
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