Fake Studies

[Guest guest]

A friend just posted this on Facebook. It's from a site called TechDirt.com "

Elsevier Had A Whole Division Publishing Fake Medical Journals

from the doesn't-that-make-you-feel-safe? dept

Remember a week ago when we wrote about pharma giant Merck and publishing giant

Elsevier working together to publish a fake journal that talked up various Merck

drugs and was used by doctors to show that the drugs were safe and useful? Well,

you knew the story wouldn't end there, right? Slashdot points us to the

discovery that there is actually a whole division at Elsevier that would publish

such journals and tried to duck this fact before sort of (but not fully)

admitting it:

In a statement to The Scientist magazine, Elsevier at first said the company

" does not today consider a compilation of reprinted articles a 'journal' " . I

would like to expand on this statement: It was a collection of academic journal

articles, published by the academic journal publisher Elsevier, in an academic

journal-shaped package. Perhaps if it wasn't an academic journal they could have

made this clearer in the title which, I should have mentioned, was named: The

Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine.

Things have deteriorated since. It turns out that Elsevier put out six such

journals, sponsored by industry. The Elsevier chief executive, Hansen,

has now admitted that they were made to look like journals, and lacked proper

disclosure. " This was an unacceptable practice and we regret that it took

place, " he said.

The pharmaceutical industry, and publishers, as we have repeatedly seen, have

serious difficulties in living up to the high standards needed in this field,

and bad information in the medical literature leads doctors to make irrational

prescribing decisions, which ultimately can cost lives, and cause unnecessary

suffering, not to mention the expense.

I don't have the direct link, because it was through FB, but you can leave

comments on the article if you can search the site for it.

Mi