The Scientist reports on the efforts of Merck to create a journal that looked like it was peer-reviewed, but only contained summaries or reprints of other research.  Working with the publisher Elsevier, Merck supported the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, a journal that is not indexed in MEDLINE, a major index of biomedical research, nor is there a website for the journal.  The existence of this journal came about during an Australian lawsuit over the recalled Merck drug Vioxx.  You can review two issues online.  According to witnesses in the trial, the preponderance of articles covered in the journal were about Merck products, and some of the review articles were very thinly sourced.  A journal with even moderate review standards and a board with members who are awake and coherent wouldn’t let this pass.

There are two particular concerns here.  This suspect conduct in biomedicine does nothing to help that field combat the issues surrounding conflicts of interest.  Additionally, this misleading activity points out that the lay reader, or even Ph.Ds reading outside their speciality, may not be able to effectively assess the quality or potential biases of journals and research.  Working in policy, it’s much more common to consider the sources of research and give those products effective scrutiny.  Being more open and transparent about the processes behind journal submission, review and publication can help combat the relative ease of others to sneak in low-quality or biased research under the guise of quality journals.