Merck creates fake Journal for it’s drugs
In its efforts to sell fatally flawed drugs, Merck produced and published a fake journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine. Elsevier was quite happy taking their money for printing it—and keeping quiet about it, too. Perhaps the marketing department at Merck should be given an award for its creativity…right before they and everyone involved is marched off to prison.
It was so blatantly self-serving that one must wonder why it didn’t raise eyebrows in the medical world. The one thing that gives it the appearance of legitimacy is that Elsevier produced it. Two complete photocopies in PDF format are available for your perusal:
Articles called “Reviews” were generally brief, poorly documented, poorly or not referenced, and often didn’t give authors’ names, other than to specify “B&J”, presumably meaning “Bone and Joint” as a reference to the fake journal. Most, if not all, of the studies were reprints or summaries of existing studies that had previously been printed in Elsevier journals.
(insert super hero voice) At least Free Market capitalism will take care of this! They will lose all their business and be shut down because consumers will no longer by their products! Victory!
Not only should the Merck execs go to jail, but the producers of “House” should sue for plagiarism.
This is stolen right from the episode where House lures a former college rival to Princeton General, and then exposes him as a ‘write for hire’ phony who ‘published’ an article in an Indian medical journal no one ever heard of praising a migraine drug. In the episode, House learns basic Hindi and almost dies when he takes the drug as a guinea pig.
Can’t Merck even make up original crimes on their own? They gotta steal from teevee?
I always love how people bow to the alter of the “free market” as if it will solve all our problems. The “free market” might work in a small world where everyone knows everything but for those areas where people cannot possibly know everything, we need government to regulate what we cannot. I’m sure conservatives will find some way to blame this on government, though its funny how often they’re having to do that now.
There are a lot of obscure journals out there already. I’m not sure why they needed a fake one. I guess I would say the journal is not actually “fake,” just obscure and started for a specific purpose (and probably never printed again). Since they got Elvesier to go along, I assume they can claim it is real though it would not be considered a “peer reviewed” journal.
More corporate criminality…..
Not peer reviewed — that’s exactly the final point of disqualification of the so-called journal. You and I both know, Pandora, that without peer review credibility is severely compromised.
I would like a copy of this journal. Can I pay for it with my check drawn on the Sawtooth National Bank?
We’ve been fighting that battle, Perry! 🙂