Predatory open access journals and a crank mutual admiration society

I know I really shouldn't peruse NaturalNews.com too often. It's bad for my blood pressure, and, like many old farts on the wrong side of 50, I do have a touch of the ol' hypertension. Reading Mike Adams' blather risks raising that blood pressure either through causing me to laugh uproariously at the sheer idiocy of what he writes or by making me angry at just how despicable he can be at times. Still, I looked, and I saw something I almost wish I hadn't seen. However, that something that I saw illustrates a point about the dark side of open access journals; so I thought it was worth discussing today. After all, Ben Swann's long promised report on the "CDC whistleblower" isn't due out until tomorrow, and I needed some hilarious crankitude to fill my blogging time until tomorrow night's festivities, which should be amusing indeed. (Yes, I'm directly comparing Swann to Adams.)

Adams just loves a certain paper published in a certain open access journal:

A hugely important paper has just been published in the Epidemiology: Open Access science journal. It is authored by Kevin Mugur Galalae, Founder and Director of the Center of Global Consciousness in Ontario.

In it, Galalae correctly points out that the entire medical-agricultural complex as it exists today is intentionally engineered to deliberately reduce human population. Overpopulation of the planet is a very real and very serious problem, he believes, but the current strategy of world governments to reduce human population via covert infertility, immune suppression and "death by medicine" is unethical and insufficient to achieve the desired level of depopulation.

His paper is published at this link.

So it is. The paper is entitled The Subversion of Medicine and Public Health by International Security Prerogatives, and if you want a better example of why OMICS Group "open access" journals are predatory "pay to publish" journals, look no further than this little gem of a paper. It reads like Gary Null crossed with the demon offspring of Alex Jones and Sarah Palin as translated by Mike Adams. It's got everything: Antivaccinationism of the variety claiming vaccines are a plot to depopulate the world, anti-pharma, anti-GMO, anti-science. No wonder Adams loves Galalae's article so much. Rarely have I found a paper that has no scientifically redeeming features whatsoever, whose sole value consists of entertainment and serving as an example of how not to write science. Heck, when I first read it, I was convinced that it had to be a Sokal-type hoax, but apparently not.

First of all, who is the author of this article, Kevin Mugur Galalae? I had never heard of him; so I did what I need to do. I Googled him.It didn't take long to figure out that he's a crank on the level of Alex Jones or Mike Adams himself. I do like the titles of some of his publications, though:

Perusing these publications, my first thought was: How is it that I've never heard of this guy before? In particular, I love his publication WE ARE SCREWED. So concise, so to the point. At first I thought he must be talking about the choice of having Donald Trump or Ted Cruz as the Republican nominee and possible President, but no. It's a conspiracy-laden rant. Oh, well. So is The Subversion of Medicine and Public Health by International Security Prerogatives, which—surprise! surprise—Galalae had already published online. No self-respecting journal would publish something that isn't new, something that's just a paper that's been published in whole on a website before; obviously Epidemiology: Open Access is not a self-respecting journal. Certainly, there is copious evidence that OMICS Group journals fit that description.

But back to Galalae's publication that Adams liked so much. The first thing I was interested in was exactly what sort of methodology he used to develop his hypothesis, investigate and test it, and come to conclusions. Sadly, it doesn't take long to find:

The publication of this article, which contains forbidden fruit, is preceded by five years of struggle against the multiple walls of deception, dishonesty and oppression erected by colluding governments to preserve an international order that keeps peace between nations by committing genocide within nations.

Having challenged the matrix of control that the covert depopulation and overt globalization axis represents, the authorities have imprisoned me seven times, have kept me nearly one year behind bars, have forcibly separated me from my wife and children for more than four years now, have destroyed my career and economic wellbeing, have deprived me of every material possession I have ever had, and have forced me to go to extraordinary and unprecedented lengths to defend my credibility and freedom. As a result, I have suffered five hunger strikes, the longest of which lasted 75 days, have crossed international borders clandestinely to avoid arrest, have lived in exile for nearly two years, and have survived without an income for more than three years.

In light of the fact that over the past seven decades countless people and several heads of state have been assassinated to keep the objectives of the international order secret and countless more have had their lives destroyed, I can only consider myself lucky to be alive and privileged to be allowed to speak.

The fact that my research is finally being published in this medical journal indicates that a political decision was made at the highest level of global governance to facilitate a change of direction towards a new geopolitical accommodation that is no longer secret and may in fact follow the prescriptions I briefly outline in this article.

It's apparently true. Galalae did apparently undertake a hunger strike at the Vatican in order to "to compel Pope Francis to speak up with respect to covert population control methods in use since 1945." That didn't work out so well. I am, however, impressed at the massiveness of Galalae's ego. He wrote the above paragraphs in all seriousness. The fact that his research is finally being published in a medical journal means that "They" are taking him seriously? Not so much. More like Galalae had the cash that the OMICS Group requires; so Galalae was "allowed" to publish in a bottom-feeding predatory journal. One rather suspects that Galalae's financial distress over the years has little to do with any government or vast "New World Order"-style conspiracy keeping him down and more to do with his own behavior. That's just my guess.

Galalae's methods section similarly amuses me:

By casting the widest spatiotemporal net possible so as to encompass seven decades of history and policy and the entire community of nations, and by using a multidisciplinary approach that collates the complex, nonlinear and mostly unquantifiable interactions of political, geopolitical, statistical, demographic, medical, pharmaceutical, ethical, theological, chemical, environmental, economic and military factors, it has been possible to identify the anthropogenic causes of chronic illnesses and their ultimate source and to outline a course of action for an effective disease prevention program that will confine non-communicable diseases to history and will restore not only our individual but also our social health.

This is, of course, ostensibly a journal of epidemiology, but these sure don't sound like epidemiology methods or this paper like an epidemiology study. Rather, it's more like a polemic. Actually, it's more like word salad. It's fairly impressive word salad, which is why it caught my attention enough to blog about it after I saw Mike Adams exulting over it.

The funny thing is that Galalae actually believes in depopulation. He states that global conflict and war are inevitable unless the human population is radically reduced. He just doesn't like the way it's being done, or at least the way he thinks it's being done. He thinks the population is being eliminated through an effort that's been going on since 1945 and that the "cause of causes" for non-communicable chronic diseases is this very conspiracy of population control. Of course, if there really is a conspiracy to depopulate the planet, it has to be the most incompetent conspiracy ever. After all, the world population in 1945 was less than 2.5 billion. (I looked it up.) It's now over 7 billion. That's nearly a three-fold increase in only 70 years. Whenever I hear claims of a radical depopulation plan bandied about by various cranks, I can't help but remember those numbers.

That being said, Galalae doesn't disagree with the idea of depopulation. He thinks that the world will be destroyed by global war sparked by competition for increasingly inadequate resources if significant depopulation doesn't occur. Rather:

Let me state clearly and unequivocally that the objective of stabilizing the global population and bringing it down to a sustainable level is non-negotiable. Therefore, what we must do is not challenge population control, but force a change in the methods by which it has been pursued since 1945.

In other words the chronic, sub-lethal poisoning of the global populace with endocrine disruptors and other chemical and biological means must stop while population control must continue, but it must continue by safe contraceptive methods, the only methods being barrier methods and surgical sterilizations, which can only be used if people assume responsibility for population control from governments so that governments no longer have to poison us into infertility and ill-health in secret through the basic elements of life for the sake of safeguarding international peace.

Not surprisingly, Galalae views vaccines and pharmaceuticals as part of this plot. He thinks that the HIV pandemic and Ebola epidemics have been part of this effort, "man-made" diseases designed with the goal of depopulation. Chemicals and GMOs are "designed to weaken and confuse the autoimmune response of billions in preparation for naturally occurring pathogens or man-made pandemics that will be engineered when and if the UN and its agencies, aided by the military-industrial complex, decide to implement final solutions to prevent select regions of the world from losing control of society and to aid backward countries in reaching their socio-economic goals." Most amazingly, Galalae wants the world to switch from all these "covert" methods of depopulation (never mind, for the moment, that there is no such conspiracy) to overt methods, whatever those might be.

Not surprisingly, as much as he likes Galalae's description of the "problem," Adams isn't so thrilled with his conclusion regarding the solution, which Adams views as an "Agenda 21-style global government that forces people to obey whatever world directives on depopulation are desired by the globalists." In other words, Galalae's crankery leads him to propose replacing one conspiracy with the one-world government that conspiracy theorists like him usually fear more than anything.

To Adams, it all doesn't matter anyway:

Besides, overpopulation likely won't be a problem for much longer...

Humanity is going to destroy itself anyway

It is my view that humanity is going to unleash its own global killer event within the next 50 years -- something that's likely to reduce the global population by 50% or more.

What are these potential events? I've covered them extensively here on Natural News, and recently Stephen Hawking echoes some of my predictions from 2012. See my article S.O.S. alert: Help STOP Out-of-control Science from destroying us all.

And:

So my answer to Galalae is that we don't need a global government to depopulate the planet because arrogant, egoistic humans are going to wipe themselves out all on their own.

Maybe so, although from my view probably not. Certainly, if human beings wipe themselves out it won't be because of big pharma or GMOs or even chemicals. It used to be that global thermonuclear war was the most likely means by which human beings would wipe themselves out, and although it's still possible that could happen it's far more likely that the consequences of anthropogenic climate change would do it, but even that's by no means anywhere near a sure thing. Climate change will likely cause severe disruption and suffering, but I've always doubted the apocalyptic warnings that it would eliminate humans from the planet. That's because we human beings are quite clever. We adapt. It would be a lot harder to wipe us out than Adams thinks.

But I sure do find his apocalyptic warnings of global human extinction amusing.

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After reading the expression "forbidden fruit", I snickered. It sure set the tone for the rest of the article editorial.
However, reading about Galalae's woes and his hope that he is going to be taken seriously after being published in this kind of journal (who couldn't care less about his credibility as long as he pays)... that was not amusing, that was just sad.

Whoever is behind this shadowy conspracy of "covert depopulation" needs to be fired by our reptillian overlords due to incompetence.

The references are spectacular. "Janeiro RD" is the bestest author ever.

How could the editorial board of the journal allow this tripe to be published? What surprised me the most is that the majority of board members are located in the U.S. and at some of the nations leading universities. What's their incentive? Cash or trash?

By Lighthorse (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

@ Amethyst

I know, right?

Similarly, the keeping of world peace since 1945 has been less than optimal. Unless you count for nothing the little genocides and other civil wars which happened about every 5 years in East Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle-East...

By Helianthus (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

How could the editorial board of the journal allow this tripe to be published? What surprised me the most is that the majority of board members are located in the U.S. and at some of the nations leading universities. What’s their incentive?
Whackyweedia:
"It was also suggested that OMICS provides lists of scientists as journal editors to create the impression of familiarity or scientific legitimacy, even though these are editors in name only and are not involved in the review or editing process.[2] An editor-in-chief who was contacted by Science stated that he had never handled any papers;[5] in an interview with The Hindu, another said he had not been informed of his purported editorship.[6] Other academics have said that OMICS published articles unaltered in spite of their request for revisions.[10] The company has also been slow to remove the names of editorial board members who requested to terminate their relationship with OMICS activities, in some cases taking almost two years.[11][10]"

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

“Janeiro RD” is the bestest author ever.

Ref. 8, "Pope PV (1968) Humanae Vitae" must count for something.
Also "Medical Press (2015)".

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

@herr doktor bimler #6: Thank you for enlightening me. More than in name only, photos of the 'editorial board' are displayed at the site.

By Lighthorse (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

"..the authorities have imprisoned me seven times, have kept me nearly one year behind bars, have forcibly separated me from my wife and children for more than four years now.."

Judging by the eyeball-spinning paranoic tinfoil-hatted nature of this chap's writing, I suspect that these "imprisonments" may well have been in hospitals which deal with mental illness.

By Lenny Law (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

"Shucky psychopath shills sad psychotic as shakedown sharks circle!"

Sounds like an episode of The X-Files. When does colonization begin?

Of course, that's on my mind now. Highly recommended if you missed it.

By Michael Finfer, MD (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

And he continues today with a new article**

"Pharmaceutical giants, toxic food manufacturers and agri-giants have caused so much brain damage among the human population that they * now feel the need to create brain-damaged primates* so they can study possible treatments that can be sold to the damaged humans"

(-btw- those "genetically modified" monkeys are supposed to be autistic)

At any rate, Mike, like Gary Null, has been attempting to set up an alternative news-media-information-shlock empire in order to subvert customers away from the mainstream. Thus, when they pay outrageous prices for vitamins or superfoods they imagine that they are helping support an endeavor that reveals the Truth to the People.

As I've reported over the years, the other idiot has done everything he can to show that the mainstream, government, media, authorities, experts and reason are not be trusted but that you should trust him instead.

And why do customers trust these loons?
I suggest that - in part- they identify with them as NOT being elite experts from well-known universities but ' just regular guys' from folksy origins ( in Kansas or West Virginia- and both stress their rural, lower middle class roots) who have managed to peel back the layers of the onion *** uncovering the criminal manipulations that have been engineered over the decades to control them and keep them in their respective places. Now they're fighting back!

Readers/ listeners want to be members of that First Wave in the tsunami of Paradigm Shift about to wash over and cleanse society and science as though it were Numenor.
They cheer these idiots on ( I read comments on NN and hear listeners' calls on PRN) and buy their crappy products.

Anyone can look at their price lists and then compare similar products at other vitamin emporia.

** compleat with a photo of a sad baby monkey
* in bold
** and most of their 'science" sounds like it comes form The Onion

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

Galalae did apparently undertake a hunger strike at the Vatican in order to “to compel Pope Francis to speak up with respect to covert population control methods in use since 1945.”

My conspiracy-to-English translator is giving me trouble here. Is he talking about contraceptives? If so, the Catholic Church is about the last organization he should be protesting to, because they are opposed to contraception.

By Eric Lund (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

I thought that this was an excellent article. Well, the author may, in some ways, be a total loon but I was extremely impressed with his ability to handle long sentences.

A friend who teaches history constantly laments his students' attempts to write long sentences when they don't have the training for it. The students apparently think long sentence make them look more knowledgeable whereas it seems to make them look more incoherent.

It is a lost skill these days with the decline of Latin scholarship. My thought was that the writer was an older Catholic-educated Latin scholar who really learned how to handle rolling periodic sentences.

In the Abstract alone, the mean word count is 42.8 and that's with a last sentence with only 14 words. Several of the sentences in the main body exceed 100 words and one that I checked was 115 words long and they were all semantically coherent (if that makes sense?). The actual meaning of the words may have been totally nonsensical but so are most musical lyrics.

I was a bit wrong on the age but St Jerome's HS is Catholic. My only doubt about my guess is that he is originally from Romania. Perhaps Romanian naturally lends itself to long sentences thus negating or partly negating my Latin hypothesis?

It is nice to see that he is an equal opportunity believer in world poisoning. The sweep from fluoride to Weisbach materials (chemtrails?) via man-made diseases such a AIDS and Ebola is refreshing. None of this silly concentrating on some niche market like vaccines.

#9 Lenny Law
Reads a lot like a Childrens' Aid case
Re the childern:

o be able to do this I ask that my children are returned to me without delay. They have been taken away from me by force and have been held hostage by the governme nt of Canada for nearly four
years/...

from Peace without Poison. which makes your suggestion seem very likely.

It's real pity, he reads like a fairly brilliant man who has gone completely into a delusional state thought, worryingly enough, I found myself agreeing with him more than once.

I do agree with Orac that Climate change will likely cause severe disruption and suffering, but I’ve always doubted the apocalyptic warnings that it would eliminate humans from the planet.

On the other hand don't buy beach front property and be prepared for total chaos in some areas. My guess is that we are going to lose Bangladesh and Florida among other places.

I can sympathize with Galalae's viewpoint. We are not talking about some minor thing like a few Krakatoas, tsunamis and droughts.

#14 Eric Lund
Sheesh Eric, the Church is publicly opposed ...

And, possibly, he is saying that it should not be? While most of the screed is fairly internally consistent there are noticeable contradictions; that may be another one. In a way it seems to read as two works, one anti-UN and one anti-Catholic Church pasted together and a few inconsistencies missed.

@ Lenny Law: This part caught my eye specifically (bolded): "“..the authorities have imprisoned me seven times, have kept me nearly one year behind bars, have forcibly separated me from my wife and children for more than four years now ..”

Sounds like his wife took out a restraining order that he resents..

Where's Lord Draconis when you really need him? :(

By Johanna Mead (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

As soon as I saw the first four words in the title I was pretty certain we'd be dealing with the OMICS group. They're horrible, horrible people.

My most recent interaction with them was when I was invited to a conference they were hosting last summer:

http://condensedmatterphysics.conferenceseries.com/

The website bore all of the hallmarks of a legitimate conference. It was well-designed, included a full preliminary schedule, a list of well-known keynotes, etc. In fact, I was almost ready to sign up until I saw the registration cost. It was nearly $1000 for the non-student registration, and that didn't include accommodations. Most conferences I have attended are maybe $300 tops for registration and food. When I looked a little closer at the schedule, I saw some bizarre subtopics for a condensed matter physics conference, including black holes (I suppose they're really, really condensed matter). Earlier, I had emailed the organizers with a simple question about student posters, and when I got the reply it came in very broken English and it was clear that my question hadn't been understood. The email came from a "Stephen Jones"... right...

I put my skeptical hat on, and eventually stumbled upon this website:

http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/01/25/omics-predatory-meetings/

It turns out OMICS is infamous for hosting multiple unrelated conferences at the same time and in the same venue (all competing for the same resources, including food and presentation space), half of the organizing committee has no idea they were supposed to be organizing a conference, most of the speakers never planned on attending and their abstracts are stolen from former conference presentations on their personal websites, and there is absolutely no reimbursement for cancellation. Apparently the burden of organizing the conference falls on a few unlucky people who agreed to have small supporting roles, and had to cover for everyone who bailed or was never coming to the conference to begin with. OMICS presence at the conference was basically nil. I'd recommend reading the scholarlyoa page fully for more of OMICS' despicable behaviour. It's a predatory organization through and through.

#5 Helianthus

Similarly, the keeping of world peace since 1945 has been less than optimal.

Think of it like the Congress of Vienna. The Congress did not prevent “minor” wars but did help prevent a full-blown conflagration up till World War I.

#12 Denice Walter
And why do customers trust these loons?
I suggest that – in part- they identify with them as NOT being elite experts from well-known universities

Worked for Rob Ford (we ignore the fact that he came from a wealthy, politically-active family) and my impression is that the "just regular guys" line works even better in the US.

I should mention that, like Orac, sometimes I can just laugh at these loons but usually, I get quite angry because it is so obvious to me how they are manipulating their followers even as they declare that so-called 'power brokers' are manipulators, habitual liars and sociopaths hell-bent on control of the masses-

what are they JEALOUS that others have been so much more successful with larger numbers of victim than they themselves are? Or have acquired much more wealth?

I suppose that those mercenary greed monsters are their role models and that they see the world as a reflection of their own petty, power-and-lucre-seeking inner drives despite all of their ruminations upon spirituality, altruism and humanitarianism.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

@ Joanna Mead:

In Santa Rosa, probably having a chai latte.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

Have these vultures latched onto the Zika virus outbreak in Brazil just in time for the Olympic games yet?

I can only imagine what they'll do with that, shudder.

Mikey continues:
( today's recorded rant- at 14 minutes )

He wouldn't be surprised if " global warming nuts" engineered viruses to kill and thus reduce the population!
They have the " ethics of Satan" and they "hate g-d", indeed thinking themselves and natural selection " better than g-d"

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

@ Eric Lund #13

My conspiracy-to-English translator is giving me trouble here. Is he talking about contraceptives?

One second, using my conspiracy-to-French-to-English translator.

No, no, the paragraph about the necessity of population growth control makes it clear he is for contraceptives, at least the ones of the condom/membrane/surgery* types. If anything, pestering the Catholic church about these is consistent.
What he is against is chemical contraceptives put sneakily into vaccines, chemtrails and whatever else.
Um. For this latter part, pestering the Catholic church about stopping the use of abortifacients is indeed knocking at the wrong door.

* surgery? Wait, is he advocating for a large part of the male population to emasculate themselves?

Speaking of the Church:

@ Denice reporting on Mike Adams

They have the ” ethics of Satan” and they “hate g-d”, indeed thinking themselves and natural selection ” better than g-d”

If I didn't know any better, I would ask how Mike is reconciling this and Galalae’s strong anti-religion views. Apparently, the "ethics of Satan" are not limited to these nasty godless scientists.
Although Galalae seems to focus on the Catholic church, so I guess that leaves non-organized religions off the hook.
A loophole. Lucky save.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

I hereby request that the totally competent conspiracy conspire against me obtaining one billion dollars. You know who I am.

By justthestats (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

I am blocked on this, in the very first sentence:

the geopolitical objectives of international cohabitation

I can't even conceive of what that is supposed to mean. Does he think America wants to shack up with Germany?

By Dan Welch (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

My most recent interaction with them was when I was invited to a conference they were hosting last summer:

Many of the skeezy little OMICS 'journals' exist primarily to promote bogus scamferences from OMICS. I guess that's where the money is.

when I got the reply it came in very broken English and it was clear that my question hadn’t been understood. The email came from a “Stephen Jones”… right…

You did not find yourself corresponding with Sophia Lauren?
https://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/sophia-loren.jpg?w=428

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

** compleat with a photo of a sad baby monkey
** and most of their ‘science” sounds like it comes form The Onion

Ohh, Denice Walter #12; How could you?

Could multiple stab wounds lead to shorter lives? A new study on primates from the National Institute of Health says, "It's possible."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ7J7UjsRqg

Did everybody notice that 9 of Galalae's references are to himself?!

Did everybody notice that 9 of Galalae’s references are to himself?!

It would be mere pedantry to point out that his self-references #1 and #22 are to the same article.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

Did everybody notice that 9 of Galalae’s references are to himself?!

That by itself isn't necessarily wrong. Research is supposed to build on earlier research, so it would be more unusual to see a paper with no self-citations. But when the non-self citations include authors like R. D. Janeiro and P. V. Pope, things get a bit suspicious.

I recently reviewed a manuscript in which about half of the papers cited were by the same author, and some of those citations were to an in-house journal (the author was affiliated with a provincial institute in [country name redacted]). I recommended rejection on other grounds, and the editor concurred, but I did complain about the references to unobtainable journals..

By Eric Lund (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

> No self-respecting journal would publish something that isn’t new, something that’s just a paper that’s been published in whole on a website before

Are you not aware of arxiv.org and other e-prints repositories where researchers publish papers pre-submission? (And yes, some do get published in reputable conferences and journals).

But when the non-self citations include authors like R. D. Janeiro and P. V. Pope, things get a bit suspicious.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the reference strangeness may actually have come with the OMICS article processing services.

Perhaps Romanian naturally lends itself to long sentences thus negating or partly negating my Latin hypothesis?

We need JP to weigh in on this, but Romanian has retained a lot of Latin grammatical complexity -- the whole panoply of inflections and case markers -- even though Slavic words have infiltrated its lexicon.
The infallible Whackyweedia devotes a subsection to explaining some of the many ways of building a complex sentence in Romanian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_grammar#Phrase_syntax

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

Galalae writes,

I have suffered five hunger strikes, the longest of which lasted 75 days...

MJD says,

That's unbelievable, I went without food for three days when I was in college and felt half dead.

Maybe it was two days without food for me, anyways this guy either eats like a bird or he's a "quack". :-)

By Michael J. Dochniak (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

" Did everybody notice that 9 of Galalae’s references are to himself?!"

Unless it means citing the voices in one's head...

By Dangerous Bacon (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

Science Mom@23: Yep, psychotic as fack. Delusional paranoid neverending screeds are a bit of a giveaway. Not surprised the wife would take the kids and run: if he can't or won't be medicated then their own self-preservation has to come first.

Incredibly unpleasant, terrifying, incomprehensibly and potentially very dangerous disease – not just for the victim but family, friends, and everyone else around him too.

This being a family-friendly forum I'll not say precisely what I think of OMICS and Adams gleefully exploiting someone in so appallingly ill for their own fame and profit. (Other than noting the woodchipper won't be needed until much, much later, thanks.)

Michael J. Dochniak @40:

HAS says,

KMG makes MJD's malfunction look like a sunny walk in the park.

No sympathy among the mentally ill, natch. (I'd also hazard a guess this hunger strike was held within a secure mental unit, in which case the phrase "nasogastric tube" might have something to do with it.)

Thanks a bunch, Orac. Those links to the loon's "academic" papers provided me with some of the best laughs I have had in quite a while. It appears that he will embark on a hunger strike whenever something doesn't go his way. Is there any research into the effects of malnutrition on mental health? Seems like a promising case study right here...

#27 - A common trope amongst non-Catholic Christian fanatics (especially in the US) is to denounce the Catholics as not being Christian and as such hatred and bias towards the "Catholic God" does not conflict with their own religious view.

For example, you might've heard of Jack Chick? The guy behind those lovely tracts people leave on the toilet for you to find? He considers the Catholic Church a tool of Satan, "the Whore of Bablyon" as well as Illuminati-eqsuely being directly responsible for the founding of Islam.

So if they're not Catholic, I'm sure they can easily get around it with some not-so-mental gymnastic.

Orac,

Obviously the paper is pure loony tunes and the OMICS group despicable, but one quibble. You write "No self-respecting journal would publish something that isn’t new, something that’s just a paper that’s been published in whole on a website before," because he's posted a draft to academia.edu. Pretty much every reputable journal now expressly allows one to publish one's article on a preprint repository such as the arXiv or bioRxiv prior to submission -- so for all OMICS's efforts to discredit themselves, this doesn't seem to be one of them.

Why would they write something if it wasn't true? That doesn't make any sense.

It reminds me of the time Nature rejected my paper about Moon Women, fortunately I was able to get my research to the public by appealing to the editors of a journal called Amazing Stories.

By Jethro Clampett (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

@ Pat

Is there any research into the effects of malnutrition on mental health?

Nothing at hand right now, but I remember dimly that prolonged periods without proper nutrition are not good for our internal organs - kidneys, brain, all of this unnecessary stuff...
As the wiki article on hunger strike put it, after one month or so without feeding, internal organs are harvested for nutrients.
This notion of "harvest" doesn't sound good.

The relation between hunger strike and mental health could also be the other way round. It takes some dedication to resist the drive to eat.
This dedication could be based on strong principles or a deep despair. Or it could be indicative of already having mental troubles, like a strong desire to punish oneself or the others.

@ Amethyst

“the Whore of Bablyon”

Ah, of course. The Catholic/Protestant divide. Nothing news under the sun since the 16th century.
I was presuming as much and really shouldn't have asked.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 26 Jan 2016 #permalink

Which, of course, should be "the Whore of Babylon".

Not being able to go back and edit my comments for annoying typos is doing a number on my OCD.

I love the idea that Stephen Hawking is echoing Mike Adams. I guess even the most famous scientists in the world have to keep up their publication rate somehow.

Amethyst & Helianthus

Having perused Galalae’s other work an seen his references to (thankfully now ex) Prime Minister Stephen Harper as "a born again Christian" (a phrase that I always translate to sanctimonious a$$hole) he is not a Christian fundamentalist of any stripe and may well be a militant atheist.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 27 Jan 2016 #permalink

# 39 HDB
JP? I thought JP was Polish.

From that link all I can say is I'm glad I'm not learning Romanian. All those funny accents are just too confusing. It is interesting thought that Romanian has articles. Somehow, since it is supposed to be quite closely related to Latin I was not expecting to see them.

Romanian is a Romance language (Nothing about bodices being torn here, move along.) just as French, Spanish, or Italian, so it is related to Latin just as the others.
During the time I was in Israel I met and spoke with Romanian emigrès. I found that most of them had French as a second language because it was relatively easy for them to learn. There was a Romanian language daily paper as well. I found that my high school French enabled me to pick my way through the articles with very little help.

By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 27 Jan 2016 #permalink

Ugh, and with such a small population-- how will our bigPharma overlords have anyone to peddle their death drugs to? What will happen to all of the productivity? How will money be made and more conspiracies created?! Depopulation sucks!

By Chadwick Jones (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

With all this discussion about the Whore of Babylon, I'm reminded that I live only about ten miles from Babylon (Babylon, NY, that is).
Does anyone have her address?

By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

Talking of predatory journals.

Here is an interesting story regarding Seralini and the predatory journal Scholarly Journal.

Not only did the journal accept a bit of obvious non-science and publish it as science, the journal then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Of course it is all a conspiracy.

By Chris Preston (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

Here is an interesting story

Link's broken.

@ Chris Preston

Your link is broken. I don't know if this is the one you wanted, but here is a link on Science 2.0 about this last Seralini article.

Money quote, the opening sentence of the article:

It was not designed as a science experiment

The French science blog which brought it to my attention was titled something like "First time it's a tragedy, second time it's a farce".

I met recently a student from the University of Rouen, who had Seralini as a teacher. This wonderful, "independent" anti-GMO hero was using his public lectures at the university to promote the sale of his books and movies.
And people wonder why I don't trust ecology/new age activists.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

#56 - It's 22 Acacia Avenue. Ask for Charlotte.

My link was to Retraction Watch. And the exact Journal was Scholarly Journal of Agricultural Science, which is based out of Nigeria. They used to spam me a lot.

By Chris Preston (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

@ Chris Preston

Scholarly Journal of Agricultural Science

To respect the journal's editor's spelling, it's "Agrucultural".

Well, at least in one instance, according to the French blog I read.

To be fair (sorta), over at Retraction Watch they are suspecting website hijacking. Someone could resuscitate a defunct journal website, just the time to cash in a few articles, before pulling the plug.
So, maybe more a case of an identity theft than of a predatory journal.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

I think that the term "predatory" does not apply here. It is symbiosis. I don't think that people publishing in journals without being reviewed by peers are victims of predation. It's their choice.

By Daniel Corcos (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

To be fair (sorta), over at Retraction Watch they are suspecting website hijacking.

You may be misreading the report from RetWatch, but they in turn are misreading Bealll's description of the journal-hijacking phenomenon.

The latter usually involves scammers setting up a website using the name of an existing, recognised, but low-profile journal, whether or not that existing journal's own domain has expired (it may not even have a website).

The situation with the SJAS is that the domain has just now expired -- because the fly-by-night low-life grifters pretending to be "publishers" didn't waste money renewing it. So it is now available for someone else to hijack... if they want to. But no-one has bothered, and the original SJAS are not renewing the domain either, because Seralini gave them money, why spend any of it?

I don’t think that people publishing in journals without being reviewed by peers are victims of predation.

In most cases, I agree, it is symbiosis. Academics paying for publications website hosting to gain or keep their phoney-baloney jobs. Some people are genuinely taken in by the frauds. Some people, like Seralini, expect a symbiotic deal where they pay for a fake publication, but the other side is more corrupt and they get ripped off by the evanescence of the website.

It's a sad world when you can't trust other scoundrels.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 28 Jan 2016 #permalink

It’s a sad world when you can’t trust other scoundrels.

The irony of this whole situation is not lost on me.

By Chris Preston (not verified) on 29 Jan 2016 #permalink

@ hdb

Yeah, as usual I'm reading too much into small details.

It’s a sad world when you can’t trust other scoundrels.

As the saying goes, he got his money's worth.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 29 Jan 2016 #permalink

Was it nigerian 419 scam?

By Daniel Corcos (not verified) on 29 Jan 2016 #permalink

Thank you, Amethyst. You're a gem.

By Old Rockin' Dave (not verified) on 29 Jan 2016 #permalink

Explaining away opinions one disagrees with by attributing them to Malthusians can be used for a wide variety of opinions, many of them on opposite sides of a question. For example, are pesticides intended to kill off the excess population or are pesticide bans intended to allow population-stabilizing diseases? You can make similar arguments for both sides of vaccines, GMO foods, or nuclear energy.

It's no wonder such a wide variety of crackpots like the theory.

By Joseph Hertzlinger (not verified) on 30 Jan 2016 #permalink

The situation with the SJAS is that the domain has just now expired — because the fly-by-night low-life grifters pretending to be “publishers” didn’t waste money renewing it. So it is now available for someone else to hijack… if they want to.

I left a comment over at RW that didn't show up (one of the links in the original was broken from the outset, the summary was already outdated), but... new registrant "sylvester idoge" seems to have a history.

but… new registrant “sylvester idoge” seems to have a history.
As well as the fake Spanish bank scam, there was "jordanbnk-online.com" and "BofGhana.com".

Was it nigerian 419 scam?
There are suggestions of phishing. If Seralini et al paid by Paypal they would be well-advised to change their passwords and check their accounts. But his other identity as "Slim Sly" (of Warri) is linked to every scam imaginable, so he is non-specific in his activities.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Jan 2016 #permalink

I left a comment over at RW that didn’t show up

Jeffrey Beall might be able to make a story from Sylvester Idoge's adventures in publishing.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Jan 2016 #permalink

@HDB
Would be funny if he has paid with the Caen University account.

By Daniel Corcos (not verified) on 30 Jan 2016 #permalink

The point being that Seralini and his co-author were not relieved of CRIIGEN's money by a team of international conmen, with an elaborate scenario coming straight out of a heist movie, but rather by a teenage hustler at an e-mail cafe. It could be the first act of a Coen-brothers movie, I suppose.

They need to work on their critical thinking or else the universe will continue to pwn them.

As well as the fake Spanish bank scam,
A sense of completeness forces me to mention "bluegate-creditunion.com" and "parribas.com".
also Apex Journals, which will remain registered for a few more months, if Seralini is looking for an alternative publisher.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Jan 2016 #permalink

If the 419 scam scenario is correct, he did not have to pay to publish. Just to give the bank account number in order to be paid for his paper.

By Daniel Corcos (not verified) on 31 Jan 2016 #permalink

Would be funny if he has paid with the Caen University account.

It gets better. Seralini assures Ret.Watch that he did his due diligence, and shopped around the vanity publishers to ensure that he spent his institution's money prudently on the most professional journal available.

I did not have problems with this Journal existing since a long time, being referenced, very efficient in corrections / proofs / editing. The price to publish color figures and raw data on line was really comparable to others.available.

He has convinced himself that the journal domain has expired only because the article was so popular:

a website is not available, possibly because of too many international openings of it.

The paper itself refers interested readers to an Annex for the dispositive evidence, but in another display of the publisher's professionalism, there is no Annex.
ht_tp://www.gmwatch.org/images/pdf/Seralini_GE_and_Glockner_G_Paper.pdf

To my mind, the two researchers did not do enough to rule out the "Color out of Space" explanation for the farm's problems before they hastened to blame GMO grains:

The narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed there, poisoning every living being nearby; vegetation grows large, but tasteless, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the people go insane or die one by one.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 31 Jan 2016 #permalink

On a fresh look, I see that Idoge is likely the original registrant; domain expirations generally have a grace period for renewal before they're permanently released.

^ For clarification, I should note that my RW comment that didn't appear was about their story; I noticed the Iboge registration later.

The versions of "scholarly-journals.com" in the Internet Archive are the same in 2014 as in 2015. This persuades me away from the theory that there was a *reputable* Nigerian publisher who let their registration expire in January 2015, whereupon a hustler hijacked the website for a year.

In another of Idoge / Slim Sly's fake bank domains he claims the title of SJP Inc.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 31 Jan 2016 #permalink

I also left a similar comment regarding Idoge when the RW article was published, which obviously never appeared. Since both entering false whois registry information and running 419 scams are offenses that can lead to a server host disabling your domain, Idoge must be forced to switch hosts and/or continually change pieces of the registry data he provides (e.g., email, name, phone #, etc.). After looking over all of his expired/locked/deleted sites, it’s possible someone (who probably didn’t enjoy the GMO article) filed a report that flagged the domain’s registry information as potentially fraudulent, causing the host to let the site expire without giving him the chance to renew. Of course, it could be that he decided he didn't want the publicity and will fallback on his other journals' incomes. Either way, I too see little evidence to support the hijacking theory.

& I definitely concur- I'd love to see an article following Idoge’s multiple identities. His subtle data registry variations are quite fun to track. I particularly like how he just slightly alters his phone # in most instances:
+[343].80676695[32] vs
+[234].80676695[33] vs
+234.[234]806766953[_]

@ hdb

He has convinced himself that the journal domain has expired only because the article was so popular:

For some reason, that reminded me of Mr Kornada's reaction upon discovering his plans didn't pan out:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2400/fc02352.htm

By Helianthus (not verified) on 31 Jan 2016 #permalink

I’d love to see an article following Idoge’s multiple identities.

You will have come across his incarnations as the Royal Bank of Canada, or a facsimile thereof, and "CooperativeOnline"

+[234].80676695[33] vs
+234.8067669544 leads to Idoge as the PARRIBAS [sic] bank.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 31 Jan 2016 #permalink

I’d love to see an article following Idoge’s multiple identities.

Not quite what you ordered.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 03 Feb 2016 #permalink

Paul, believing in either Tim Bolen or Jake Crosby makes you look like an idiot.