Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15711

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Gallagher R.
For Shame, Merck and Elsevier
The Scientist 2009 Jun 2; 23:(6):13
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55741/

Abstract:

Everyone makes mistakes-it’s how you handle them that matters.

Merck and Elsevier, two life sciences giants, are taking different tacks in responding to a crisis that arose from an ill-judged publishing collaboration. Will the company that keeps schtum get away scott free while the one that engages takes a substantial hit?

The background: My colleague Bob Grant recently wrote a news story1 about a curious publication, The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine. It sounds like a respectable journal, but it isn’t. Published in the early 2000s, it contained a mix of local and international “news”, reprinted articles from Elsevier journals, and unsigned Reviews.

The problem was this: The publication was invented to support Merck drugs and the AJBJM was entirely paid for by Merck, yet nowhere was the relationship disclosed. It was a stealth marketing campaign to Australian doctors under the guise of a regular journal…