Merck published fake journal
Merck paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only reprinted or summarized articles--most of which presented data favorable to Merck products--that appeared to act solely as marketing tools with no disclosure of company sponsorship. Image: flicker/linkurl:meviola;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69659670@N00/ "I've seen no shortage of creativity emanating from the marketing departments of
By Bob Grant | April 30, 2009
of drug companies," Peter Lurie, deputy director of the public health research group at the consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen, said, after reviewing two issues of the publication obtained by __The Scientist__. "But even for someone as jaded as me, this is a new wrinkle." The __Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine__, which was published by Exerpta Medica, a division of scientific publishing juggernaut Elsevier, is not indexed in the MEDLINE database, and has no website (not even a defunct one)...
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http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27376/title/Merck-published-fake-journal/
And Elsevier has ties to the weapons industry and has been accused of shilling it's publications on Amazon:
Elsevier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elsevier B.V. (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɛlzəvir]) is a publishing company which publishes medical and scientific literature. It is a part of the Reed Elsevier group. Based in Amsterdam, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA, and elsewhere.
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Parent organisation links to weapons industry
An editorial in the medical journal The Lancet in September 2005 sharply criticized the journal's owner and publisher, Reed Elsevier, for its participation in the international arms trade.[24] Specifically, Reed Exhibitions organized the Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition (DSEi), a large arms fair in the U.K. The authors, appealing to the Hippocratic oath, called for the publisher to "divest itself of all business interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and well-being."[25]
In the 24 March 2007 issue of the The Lancet, leading medical centers including the UK Royal College of Physicians[26] urged Reed Elsevier to sever weapons ties. Doctors spoke out against Reed's role in the involvement of the organizing of exhibitions for the arms trade.[27] Reed Elsevier’s chief executive responded in June 2007 with a written statement agreeing to do so,[28] welcomed by authors of the petition[clarification needed],[29] announcing that it would sell the part of the company which handled military trade shows. The sale was completed in May 2008.[30]
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Sponsored journals
At a 2009 court case in Australia where Merck & Co. was being sued by a user of Vioxx, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed academic journal but in fact contained only articles favourable to Merck drugs.[39][40][41][42] Merck has described the journal as a "complimentary publication", denied claims that articles within it were ghost written by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals.[43] In May 2009, Elsevier Health Sciences CEO Hansen released a statement regarding Australia-based sponsored journals, conceding that these were "sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures." The statement acknowledged that this "was an unacceptable practice."[44] The Scientist reported that, according to an Elsevier spokesperson, six sponsored publications "were put out by their Australia office and bore the Excerpta Medica imprint from 2000 to 2005", namely the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine (Australas. J. Bone Joint Med.), the Australasian Journal of General Practice (Australas. J. Gen. Pract.), the Australasian Journal of Neurology (Australas. J. Neurol.), the Australasian Journal of Cardiology (Australas. J. Cardiol.), the Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (Australas. J. Clin. Pharm.), and the Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine (Australas. J. Cardiovasc. Med.).[45] Excerpta Medica was a "strategic medical communications agency" run by Elsevier, according to the imprint's web page.[46] On October 7, 2010, Excerpta Medica was acquired by Adelphi Worldwide.[47]
Shill review offer
According to the BBC "The firm [Elsevier] offered a $25 Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook Clinical Psychology if they would go on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble (a large US books retailer) and give it five stars." Elsevier said that "encouraging interested parties to post book reviews isn't outside the norm in scholarly publishing, nor is it wrong to offer to nominally compensate people for their time. But in all instances the request should be unbiased, with no incentives for a positive review, and that's where this particular e-mail went too far", and that it was a mistake by a marketing employee.[48]
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Full Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier
The Wikipedia entry does have some typographical discrepancies but the bulk of factual content appear to be backed by well documented links to main stream sources.
BTW. In case you are wondering how I found the parent company you can find a link at the very bottom of the study page's site to find the information for the site owner Elsevier:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/
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