Elsevier published fake medical journals

Academic publisher Elsevier has admitted its Australian office produced six fake journals between 2000 and 2005.

US magazine The Scientist revealed last week that pharma giant Merck paid Elsevier to produce a journal called the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine which contained reprints or summaries of previously published articles, many with only one or two citations.

Copies of the journal seen by The Scientist and republished on its website show that it only contained ads for Merck’s osteoporosis drug Fosamax and arthritis drug Vioxx.

In testimony at a civil suit currently being heard in Melbourne, Australian doctor George Jelinek revealed that four of the 21 articles in one issue of the journal referred to Fosamax, and in a second issue 12 out of 29 articles referred to Fosamax and nine to Vioxx.

Nowhere in the journal was it stated that Merck was the sponsor. An “honorary editorial board” of well-known Australian rheumatologists is named, complete with a spelling mistake.

The allegations were first reported by The Australian newspaper, which also reported allegations that Merck recruited scientists and doctors to put their names to Merck’s own research.

The CEO of Elsevier’s Health Sciences division in the US, Michael Hansen, has now issued a statement admitting the company’s Australian office published six journals paid for by pharmaceutical companies.

The Scientist has named these as the bone and joint medicine journal as well as Australasian Journals of general practice, neurology, cardiology, clinical pharmacy and cardiovascular medicine.

Elsevier has not revealed which pharmaceutical companies paid for them, but they bore the imprint of Elsevier’s Excerpta Medica, with an address in Sydney’s Marrickville.

In the statement, Hansen admitted that from 2000 to 2005, Elsevier’s Australian 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.”

He said the individuals involved no longer worked for 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.”