Fake journals, the internet, and public health

You've probably already heard that Merck and Elsevier are being called on the carpet for producing a medical "journal" - Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine - that appeared to be peer-reviewed, but was actually a marketing ploy to encourage doctors to prescribe Merck drugs. Ouch.

Elsevier told The Scientist,

"Elsevier acknowledges the concern that the journals in question didn't have the appropriate disclosures," the statement continued. "It is worth noting that project in question was produced 6 years ago and disclosure protocols have evolved since 2003. Elsevier's current disclosure policies meet the rigor and requirements of the current publishing environment." (source)

Okay, so they're not doing it anymore. But the ethical problems with this are obvious now and should have been obvious six years ago. On this subject, blog.bioethics.net has a comment, and our very own Janet Stemwedel has two excellent posts on the difference between fake journals and biased journals.

What is particularly reprehensible about the Merck/Elsevier story is that we live in a period when individuals are taking on an increasing share of the responsibility for monitoring their own health care. The Pew estimates that between 75% and 80% of internet users have looked online for health information, and that

Internet users living with a disability or chronic disease are more likely than other internet users to be wide-ranging online health researchers and to report significant impacts from those searches. For example, 75% of e-patients with a chronic condition say their last health search affected a decision about how to treat an illness or condition, compared with 55% of other e-patients.

The problem is that most of these engaged patients, no matter how intelligent and motivated, aren't trained to evaluate the health information they find for accuracy or credibility. When they search for information on the internet, they encounter a melange of advertising, advocacy, and science: online health information provided by hospitals, research centers, private medical practices, scientists, pharmaceutical companies, peer-reviewed journals, libraries, and government agencies, not to mention e-patients and motivated citizens (via forums, Wikipedia, blogs, and social networks). It's confusing at best; to individuals of my mom's generation, who aren't generally internet-savvy, it can be both intimidating and overwhelming. (Ditto for many youth, who may feel confident using the internet, but haven't acquired the critical-thinking skills and life experience they need to evaluate evidence for bias).

Among the hallmarks of reliable, accurate health information, I'd generally say publication in a peer-reviewed science journal ranks at the top! That's why it is so offensive that a publisher of legitimate peer-reviewed science journals would deliberately exploit the appearance of peer review to disguise a highly biased advertisement. The publication was clearly intended to fool physicians, so it likely would have fooled most of the general public as well (although active researchers would have noticed suspicious aspects, like "review" articles that cite only two sources).

Every time someone conceals an argument for their personal agenda (whether commercial or political) in the guise of science, it devalues science in the eyes of the public. It makes it that much harder to teach citizens to identify reliable information online. And it makes it that much harder for people like my mom, suffering from chronic health problems and trying to figure out where to go for help, to know what or whom to believe. The responsible parties at Merck and Elsevier really ought to be ashamed.

More like this

John Lynch and Dr. Isis have already posted on the revelation that Elsevier published something, Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, that looked and sounded like it was a medical journal but that turned out to have been fancy advertising for pharmaceuticals company Merck. The Scientist…
It's times like these when I'm happy that I haven't published in too many Elsevier Journals during the course of my career. I say that because on Thursday, it was revealed that pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp & Dohme paid Elsevier to produce a fake medical journal that, to any superficial…
Remember about a week ago, when I lamented how scientific publisher Elsevier had created a fake journal for Merck that reprinted content from other Elsevier journals favorable to Merck products in a format that looked every bit like a peer-reviewed journal but without any disclaimers to let the…
The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine is a sham concocted by Merck and Elsevier. See here and here. I'm sure there are some sort of ethical issues here. Update (5/3): Janet and Isis have more on this. Janet notes: Myself, I'm not really moved by the claim that publishing standards…

The problem is that most of these engaged patients, no matter how intelligent and motivated, aren't trained to evaluate the health information they find for accuracy or credibility.

"The responsible parties at Merck and Elsevier really ought to be ashamed." And censured in some way that creates a financial pinch. I grow weary of big corporations that play fast and loose with our health and with the larger governmental an health care systems that make those behaviors profitable.

excellent post! it's funny cause i always hesitate to believe a lot of the medical information on some of the sites that pop up when i do a search. i usually have to look at about 7 different sites until i find something that makes sense. it thought i was just in denial or something.

This incident has actually motivated me to write more about the medical woo, which is actually what pisses me off the most about this.

I tend towards what I like to describe as pathological credulity. Which means that there was some medical woo that I fell in for. Though it wasn't big on my list of reasons, I know a lot of people who are at least partially motivated into the magical thinking of CAM, because of the perceived corruption of big pharma and "western" medicine as a whole.

Examples like this one just make me exceedingly angry, because it just feeds that mentality of inherent distrust of science based medicine. Or as I like to call it, medicine.

There are companies - e.g. Kellen - that will create and manage a Society for you.
I don't know if they'll create and run the journal as well, though.

But this front group stuff is getting ever more elaborate.

(also see the Society for Risk Analysis; for 10 years (through mid 2008) its journal's editor was head or VP of a "product defense" firm. )

Also see Doubt is Their Product, by David Michaels - defendingscience.org