Merck Published Fake Journals

Posted by Bob Grant
TheScientist.com
Merck paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only reprinted or summarized articles--most of which presented data favorable to Merck products--that appeared to act solely as marketing tools with no disclosure of company sponsorship.

"I've seen no shortage of creativity emanating from the marketing departments of drug companies," Peter Lurie, deputy director of the public health research group at the consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen, said, after reviewing two issues of the publication obtained by The Scientist. "But even for someone as jaded as me, this is a new wrinkle."

The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which was published by Exerpta Medica, a division of scientific publishing juggernaut Elsevier, is not indexed in the MEDLINE database, and has no website (not even a defunct one). The Scientist obtained two issues of the journal: Volume 2, Issues 1 and 2, both dated 2003. The issues contained little in the way of advertisements apart from ads for Fosamax, a Merck drug for osteoporosis, and Vioxx. (Click here and here to view PDFs of the two issues.)

The claim that Merck had created a journal out of whole cloth to serve as a marketing tool was first reported by The Australian about three weeks ago. It came to light in the context of a civil suit filed by Graeme Peterson, who suffered a heart attack in 2003 while on Vioxx, against Merck and its Australian subsidiary, Merck, Sharp & Dohme Australia (MSDA).

In testimony provided at the trial last week, which was obtained by The Scientist, George Jelinek, an Australian physician and long-time member of the World Association of Medical Editors, reviewed four issues of the journal that were published from 2003-2004. An "average reader" (presumably a doctor) could easily mistake the publication for a "genuine" peer reviewed medical journal, he said in his testimony. "Only close inspection of the journals, along with knowledge of medical journals and publishing conventions, enabled me to determine that the Journal was not, in fact, a peer reviewed medical journal, but instead a marketing publication for MSD[A]."

He also stated that four of the 21 articles featured in the first issue he reviewed referred to Fosamax. In the second issue, nine of the 29 articles related to Vioxx, and another 12 to Fosamax. All of these articles presented positive conclusions regarding the MSDA drugs. "I can understand why a pharmaceutical company would collect a number of research papers with results favourable to their products and make these available to doctors," Jelinek said at the trial. "This is straightforward marketing."

Jelinek also pointed out several "review" articles that only cited one or two references. He described one of these articles as "simply a summary of an already published article," and noted that they were authored by "B&J Editorial."

"It appears that 'B&J' (presumably Bone and Joint) refers to the Journal, and B&J editorial presumably to the publishers or owners as there is no editor of the journal," Jelinek said in his testimony. "This is a subtle attribution, and many readers may not realise that the paper was written by the owners or publishers of the journal, presuming that is who would write under the heading of 'editorial'."

Lurie, in examining two of the issues for The Scientist, agreed that one particularly strange element of the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine is that it contains "review" articles that cite just one or two references. "I've never seen anything quite like this," he said. "Reviews are usually swimming in references." For example, one article on osteoporosis labeled above the title as a "meta-analysis" cites two references -- one itself a meta-analysis. "To the jaundiced eye, [the journal] might be detected for what it is: marketing," he said. "Many doctors would fail to identify that and might be influenced by what they read."

Lurie noted that the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine is akin to other publishing strategies employed by drug companies; paying for supplements to existing journals or publishing compilations of original research articles that tend to lack scientific rigor (so-called "throwaways"). "It's kissing cousin to two other tricks that the [drug] companies pull."

In response to several questions about the publication posed by The Scientist, an MSDA spokesperson wrote in an email: "MSDA understood that Elsevier envisaged the complimentary publication would draw on the vast resources of Elsevier, publishers of many leading peer-reviewed journals including Lancet, Bone, Joint Bone Spine and others, to deliver novel and timely full text articles and abstracts to physicians." Many of the articles appearing in the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine were in fact reprints or summaries of studies that originally appeared in other Elsevier journals.

A spokesperson for Elsevier, however, told The Scientist, "I wish there was greater disclosure that it was a sponsored journal." Disclosure of Merck's funding of the journal was not mentioned anywhere in the copies of issues obtained by The Scientist.

Elsevier acknowledged that Merck had sponsored the publication, but did not disclose the amount the drug company paid. In a statement emailed to The Scientist, Elsevier said that the company "does not today consider a compilation of reprinted articles a 'Journal'."

"Elsevier acknowledges the concern that the journals in question didn't have the appropriate disclosures," the statement continued. "It is worth noting that project in question was produced 6 years ago and disclosure protocols have evolved since 2003. Elsevier's current disclosure policies meet the rigor and requirements of the current publishing environment."

The Elsevier spokesperson said the company wasn't aware of how many copies of the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine were produced or how the publication was distributed in Australia, but noted that "the common practice for sponsored journals is that doctors receive them complimentary." The spokesperson added that Elsevier had no plans to look further into the matter.

One of the members of Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine's "Honorary Editorial Board," Peter Brooks, a rheumatologist in Australia, said he didn't recall who asked him to serve on the board, but noted that he was on Merck's Asian Pacific and international advisory boards from the mid 1990s until about 2004, as well as the advisory boards of other pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Amgen. "You get involved in a whole bunch of things at this level," Brooks said, adding that he had put his name on "a few advertorials" for pharmaceutical companies about 10 years ago.

As for the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, he said, "If it would have been put to me that [the journal] was just sort of a throwaway, then I would have said 'no'" to serving on its editorial board. He said he was never paid for his role, adding that he "didn't ever get [manuscripts] to review or anything like that," while on the board, because the journal did not accept original manuscripts for review.

"Having looked at one issue, it actually had some marketing studies," Brooks said. "It also had papers that were excerpted from other peer-reviewed journals. I don't think it's fair to say it was totally a marketing journal."

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