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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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Posted by Larry Hoover on June 4, 2009, at 17:04:26
From The Scientist, but I won't put a link up because you need to subscribe to read it. Subscription is free, though.
Edited for brevity....
Lar
News:
Elsevier tweaks custom pub rules
Publishing company Elsevier is revising its policies and procedures for partnering with pharmaceutical companies to create custom publications in response to recent media attention over a fake journal, called the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine (AJBJM), created by the company and paid for by Merck.Elsevier provided The Scientist with the names of additional custom publications produced by the company's Australia office from 2000-2005, that an Elsevier spokesperson admitted "should not have been called 'journals'." According to Elsevier, these other publications differed from AJBJM in that they were not sponsored by a single corporation, but were instead paid for by selling "clearly-marked" advertisements purchased by several pharmaceutical companies.
Like AJBJM, the additional publications did not contain original research. Sponsors had some editorial input, but not as much as Merck had over AJBJM, the spokesperson said. "We don't have any indication that any one of our advertisers or sponsors had the level of sponsor-editorial control that existed in [AJBJM]."
In April, The Scientist reported that AJBJM, a title published by Elsevier's Australian pharmaceutical services division, Excerpta Medica, from 2002 to 2005, was paid for by Merck but lacked any disclosure of Merck's financial involvement in the project. The vast majority of articles it contained presented data favorable to Merck's drugs Fosamax and Vioxx. Elsevier accepted blame for the improper publishing practices and later said that it was "conducting an internal review" of its custom publishing practices.
The discrepancies between Elsevier's previous and current assessments of these titles results from a more thorough internal investigation, according to the company spokesperson. "We knew that they came out of [the Australia] office. We knew that the practice existed. But we hadn't looked though all the files" including financial documents, emails, and paper records, he said of the company's previous assessment. Now, he continued, Elsevier believes that the other eight titles did not contain the same problems as AJBJM.Elsevier provided The Scientist with the complete list of all nine journals. They are:
The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, the Australasian Journal of Neurology, the Australasian Journal of Hospital Medicine, the Australasian Journal of General Practice, the Australasian Journal of Cardiology, the Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine, the Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, the Australasian Journal of Clinical Practice, and the Australasian Journal of Musculoskeletal Medicine.
Elsevier declined to reveal how much Merck paid to have AJBJM published. "As a matter of policy, we don't discuss the details of specific transactions with our customers," the Elsevier spokesperson said. But the publisher did reveal a range of how many copies of the nine journals were distributed in Australia. "Single issues were typically distributed to between 2,000 and 10,000 general practitioners (GP) in Australia, and the company is aware of one issue that went to 20,000 (the estimated total number of GPs in Australia)," today's Elsevier statement reads.
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