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 company now states that it plans to craft new guidelines regarding these practices by the end of June. "Elsevier will review practices related to all article reprint, compilation or custom publications and set out guidelines on content, permission, use of imprint and repackaging to ensure that such publications are not confused with Elsevier's core peer reviewed journals and that the sponsorship of any publication is clearly disclosed," the company said in a statement released today (June 4).

According to an Elsevier spokesperson, the guidelines will be written by managers involved in the publication of Elsevier's core scientific, technical, and medical (STM) journals in concert with regional leadership from the company's many international pharmaceutical services divisions.

In a May 7 statement issued by Elsevier, Michael Hansen, CEO of the company's Health Sciences Division, stated that "from 2000 to 2005, our Australia office published a series of sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures." At that time, Elsevier provided The Scientist with the names of six publications (including AJBJM) produced by its Australia office that it said contained faults and deficiencies similar to those in AJBJM.

Now, though, Elsevier has changed its assessment of the series of publications. "Within the 'Australasian Journal of' series, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint [Medicine] is the only title identified as single sponsored without proper disclosure," the statement reads.

Like AJBJM, the other journals in this series -- the company added three more titles to those it listed in May -- contain no original, peer-reviewed research and consist largely of reprinted articles, and summaries of previously published research papers. Unlike AJBJM, however, which was sponsored only by Merck, with the pharmaceutical company heavily influencing the editorial content of the journal, the other titles were bought through ad sales to a multitude of pharma companies, the names of which Elsevier declined to disclose.

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.

The Scientist has reviewed copies of AJBJM and has requested copies of the eight additional titles, but has not yet obtained or reviewed any of them.

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.

Elsevier also provided The Scientist with the names of 13 other titles that were meant to serve as custom publications similar to the other "Australasian Journal of" titles that were printed in Australia. These titles were registered by its Australia office in the first half of this decade and assigned International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) numbers, but they were never printed. Instead, they served as placeholders in the same way that URLs can be reserved for future web sites. They are:

The Australasian Journal of Pediatrics, the Australasian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Australasian Journal of Dentistry, the Australasian Journal of Infectious Diseases, the Australasian Journal of Pain Management, the Australasian Journal of Respiratory Medicine, the Australasian Journal of Sexual Health, the Australasian Journal of Psychiatry, the Australasian Journal of Asthma, the Australasian Journal of Gastroenterology, the Australasian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, the Australasian Journal of Depression, the Core Journals in Oncology.


Related stories:

Elsevier published 6 fake journals
[7th May 2009]

Merck published fake journal
[30th April 2009]