Predators and Parasites in Orthopedic Research

This is a controversial subject.

The preeminent journal in Orthopedics—The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery—tackled this increasingly urgent issue in its November 7, 2018 issue under the title “Predatory Publishing in Orthopaedic Research”.

The authors of the study—James Ray Yan, M.D. (McMaster University), Hassan Baldawi, M.D. (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain), Jonathan Robert Lex, MCBhB (University of Birmingham Medical School), Gabriel Simchovich, BSc (McMaster University), Louis-Phillippe Baisi, M.D. (McMaster University), Anthony Bozzo, M.D.CM (McMaster University), and Michelle Ghert, M.D., FRCSC (McMaster University)—found 225 possibly predatory orthopedic journals.

One was indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals and 20 (!) were indexed in PubMed. We contacted PubMed to ask how this was possible and they are still figuring when they can get back to us.

Predator Journals

The term “Predatory Journal” was coined in 2010 by University of Colorado librarian and assistant professor Jeffrey Beall.

Beall became curious about a bunch of ungrammatical spam emails he got in 2008 for, as he put it, “fishy-looking gold open access publishers I had never heard of before.”

He started keeping track. By 2011 he’d listed 23 suspicious journals. By 2016, the list had grown to 923.

And he found some common fishy attributes.  For example:

• Duplicate editorial boards (e., two or more journals list the same editorial board).
• No geographical diversity among the editorial board members. By some miracle they all reside in the same town.
• No policies or practices for digital preservation. If the journal goes kaput, all content disappears.
• Copy-proofing (locking) their PDFs. Very hard to check for plagiarism.
• Journal name doesn’t match its mission.
• False claims of indexing in legitimate abstracting and indexing services.
• Even richer, claiming to be indexed in resources that do NOT provide abstracting or indexing services.

Today, there are tens of thousands of predatory and parasitic journals and virtually every academic researcher whose name adorns a legitimately published article is inundated with dozens of emails from these hucksters. Every day.

Predatory journals intentionally deceive authors and readers about their peer review functions, impact factors, organizational affiliations or editorial board memberships.

Here are excerpts from actual recent spam journal emails which were sent to an orthopedic surgeon:

1. Research & Review: Clinical Oncology and Hematology.“Christmas Discount” to authors who agree to pay a fee to publish with this “Journal.” According to the “journal’s” unsolicited email, they will accept, literally, anything the author wishes to submit. “The article can be Research Article, Review Article, Short commentary, case report, etc…” Authors are encouraged to get their manuscript in quickly.  After all, the “December Month” will be over soon.
2. Open Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgery.This UAE-based journal has no editorial board members listed on its website, no editor, no peer review process and every name on the website is non-academic. But for a fee of between $715 and $1,030, they will gladly publish your work.
3. Dentistry: Advanced Research.“We know being an eminent personality you must be busy with your prior commitments in respect to which you couldn’t reply to our e-mail. We would be glad to know your opinion to submit your manuscript to the upcoming issue of the journal, so that we can plan accordingly to include it in the same. The quick submission will result in fast review process and publications. The accepted articles will be shelved for new issue release according to the editors and reviewer’s response. If you are ready with the manuscript kindly submit at your earliestat our websiteor you can directly send to this mail. We look forward to your quick response for the good scientific approach and study.” Reads like a Google Translation.

Turning the Tables on Predatory Journals

In 2013, Sciencecorrespondent John Bohannon submitted 304 fake scientific articles to various open access journals, many of which were published by publishers on Beall’s List. Among these publishers that completed the review process, 82% accepted the paper. Bohannon then declared that “the results show that Beall is good at spotting publishers with poor quality control.” Beall stated that the results support his claim to be identifying “predatory” publishers.

In early 2017 John H. McCool, founder and editor-in-chief of Precision Scientific Editing, decided to troll a dubious urology journal that had emailed him a manuscript solicitation. Being a fan of the TV show Seinfeld, McCool created an entirely fictional case report based on classic Seinfeldepisodes.

He used a Seinfeldfictional condition “uromycitisis poisoning.” Uromycitisis is based on a show where Jerry Seinfeld couldn’t find his car in a parking lot and had to urinate. In desperation he relieves himself in the parking ramp. Naturally, a security guard catches him in the act.

Jerry tries to talk his way out of his dilemma by inventing a phony condition called “uromycitisis”. In the show, Seinfeld tells the guard that he must urinate or die.

McCool wrote his fictional case study under the name Dr. Martin van Nostrand—another Seinfeldcharacter. The 100% fake case report was then submitted to the dubious journal (Urology & Nephrology Open Access Journal). The journal accepted McCool’s (aka: Nostrand) case report. After acceptance, the journal asked McCool to pay a “nominal” author’s fee of $799, plus tax.

McCool didn’t pay. The bogus article was still published on the journal’s website on March 31, 2017.

On September 29, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a motion for preliminary injunction against one of the largest publishers of these predatory journals—OMICS Group Inc. The FTC claimed that OMICS group engaged in unfair and deceptive practices with respect to publishing online academic journals.

According to the FTC, OMICS made numerous misrepresentations regarding the nature and reputation of their journals in order to attract consumers and made numerous misrepresentations in connection with the marketing of their scientific conferences.

OMICS claims to operate hundreds of online academic journals on a wide variety of topics, including medicine, chemistry, nursing, engineering, and genetics.

The court granted the FTC’s motion for an injunction.

At about the same time the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a statement that NIH-funded authors should take care to publish in “credible journals.” The NIH said that they have “noted an increase in the number of papers reported as products of NIH funding which are published in journals or by publishers that do not follow best practices promoted by professional scholarly publishing organizations. For example, said the NIH, such failures to follow best practices would include:

• Misleading pricing
• Failure to disclose information to authors
• Aggressive tactics to solicit article submissions
• Inaccurate statements about editorial board membership
• Misleading or suspicious peer-review processes

Are Predatory Journals Inevitable?

The pressure to publish is immense. It literally is a matter of economic survival for academic researchers.

Every year approximately 8 million authors successfully publish an article in a peer-review publication. Approximately 32 million try and fail.

The number of clinical studies listed on clinicaltrials.gov has exploded over the past 14 years. (see chart). And the fastest rate of growth has come from researchers in Asia, specifically China and India.

Very soon, certainly within the next decade, the majority of studies listed on clinicaltrials.gov will be from outside the U.S.

The economics of academic research today is biased in favor of those researchers who can raise funds from the NIH and other sources. And NIH funding is almost entirely directed to the well published, older and well established researchers. Not to young Ph.D.’s and Post-Docs.

The scientific establishment is aging, entrenched and increasingly impenetrable.

So, for a nominal fee of $795, the young Ph.D./post-doc who has invested a dozen years and at least a $100k in their education can publish a manuscript in a legitimate sounding journal.

Predatory and parasitic journals survive by appealing to researchers who must publish or perish.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has organized a website for those who want more information or would like to report predatory journal related mishaps.

Final Words – Beall’s Rest-of-the-Story

Jeffrey Beall, who coined the term “predatory journal”, no longer works at the University of Colorado.

In February 2013, the open-access publisher Canadian Center for Science and Education sent a letter to Beall stating that Beall’s list, which mentioned the Canadian Center, was defamatory and threatened to subject him to “civil action”.

In 2013, the OMICS Publishing Group threatened to sue Beall for $1 billion for his “ridiculous, baseless, [and] impertinent” inclusion of them on his list, which “smacks of literal unprofessionalism and arrogance.” This would be the same OMIC which the FTC sued and received a court ordered injunction against in 2017.

The letter from OMICS to Beall said, in part: “Let us at the outset warn you that this is a very perilous journey for you and you will be completely exposing yourself to serious legal implications including criminal cases lunched [sic] against you in INDIA and USA.”

OMICS’ lawyers stated that damages were being pursued under section 66A of India’s Information Technology Act, 2000, which makes it illegal to use a computer to publish “any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character” or to publish false information. The letter stated that three years in prison was a possible penalty, although a U.S. lawyer said that the threats seemed to be a “publicity stunt” that was meant to “intimidate.”

On January 15, 2017, the entire content of Beall’s Scholarly Open Access website was removed, along with Beall’s faculty page on the University of Colorado’s website.

The University of Colorado declared that the decision to take down the list was a personal decision from Beall. Beall later wrote that he had taken down his blog because of pressure from the University of Colorado, which threatened his job security.

Beall is now retired.

The work he started, however, not only continues, but is growing thanks to such top researchers as those whose work is published in the November 2018 issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Again, the title of the new study is: Predatory Publishing in Orthopaedic Research.