Was the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine incident an isolated case, or is it the first of several Elsevier journals that only appear to be legit?
Michael Hansen, CEO Of Elsevier’s Health Sciences Division, issued a statement today that suggests that a division of the company may have created the bogus journal without the knowledge of the top levels of the company:
It has recently come to my attention that from 2000 to 2005, our Australia office published a series of sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures. This was an unacceptable practice, and we regret that it took place.
We are currently conducting an internal review but believe this was an isolated practice from a past period in time. It does not reflect the way we operate today. The individuals involved in the project have long since left the company. I have affirmed our business practices as they relate to what defines a journal and the proper use of disclosure language with our employees to ensure this does not happen again.
Note that this statement uses the phrase “published a series of sponsored article compilation publications”. Some sleuthing by Jonathan Rochkind and Bill Hooker indicates that Excerpta Medica, a subsidiary of Elsevier, might have published quite a few of these sponsored-yet-unacknowledged journals.
My own poking around Excerpta Medica’s website with Google has produced an interesting Pdf titled Best practices for managing publications through a drug’s lifecycle and balancing scientific rigour and credibility with commercial goals. The document is a summary of a presentation given at by Hester Kuipers, who at the time was Program Director, Medical Communications for Exerpta Medica. Here is a brief quote:
Scientific publications in peer-reviewed medical journals are a valuable and credible vehicle to support a medical marketing strategy. Though part of most marketing plans, publications are not a promotional activity, but rather a medical one. The relationship between scientific publications and marketing messages can best be described as the first supporting the second rather than the second driving the first.
The presentation makes it clear that the research must have primacy over the promotion; hopefully the “series of sponsored article compilation publications” turns out to be the exception and not the rule for Exerpta Medica. Elsevier should investigate this thoroughly and publicly acknowledge the extent of the deception; the credibility of each and every one of their peer-reviewed journals is at stake.
some links found via ResourceShelf and through postings on the Cooperative Information Resources Managemnt (CIRM) list
