Where do you get your information and how trustworthy is it?

[Hikoi]

Beware

the journal you get your info from may look reliable but is it?

Open access (OA) medical publishing is growing rapidly. While subscription-based publishing does not charge the author, OA does. This opens the door for “predatory” publishers who take authors’ money but provide no substantial peer review or indexing to truly disseminate research findings. Discriminating between predatory and legitimate OA publishers is difficult.

In 2013, John Bohannon conducted a “sting” operation, to expose the lack of peer review in predatory OA journals, and published his story in the journal Science.

sciencemag.org/news/2013/11...

He created a fictitious paper from made-up authors from non-existent African universities that purported to identify a new chemical that inhibited cancer cell growth. The paper was purposely fundamentally flawed such that any level of peer review would result in rejection from a legitimate journal.

He sent the paper to 304 OA journals drawn from both the “predatory” scientific journal list of Beall (see below), and the Directory of Open Access Journals (presumably legitimate). Ultimately 157 (52%) accepted, 98 (32%) rejected it and the rest did not respond.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[wifeofparky]

very good advice. Always question the source and make certain it was a legitimate study with appropriate controls and oversight. Also studies using 10-12 subjects is not indicative of reliable study. When you find new info seek out other sources to collaborate the findings.

[park_bear]

If the references fail to support the assertions claimed for them that is a fatal red flag. "Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus"

[MBAnderson]

It seems to me that intentionally publishing false information about a garden hose is one thing, but willfully misleading people about (potentially dangerous) drugs/compounds to enrich oneself should be prevented by the FDA if it occurs in US and otherwise illegal. It really underscores the point we have to be slow and cautious before we hop on some new bandwagon.

[soup]

Unfortunately, peer reviewed journals take so long for results to see the light of day. It must be frustrating to see good results held up with the publishers. No excuse for this scam though.

[Hikoi in reply to soup]

I’m all for open access articles but this demonstrates they are also open to being misused. As always we have to be vigilant and questioning. Hopefully the next generation will be more discerning. So many people seem to accept that if something is written down then it must be true.

Speeding up the publishing process in the recognzed journals is yet another challenge. Any ideas on how it could be done soup?

[soup]

Many non medcal journals are run by an editorial team working in their spare time. The editors and reviewers need to be well versed in the area being reported on and are therefore usually in full employment in the scientific field. Some papers may even be sent to reviewers who are competitors in the same area of study. Perhaps this adds to the lack of speedy turn around time.

I suspect this might be the case in medical Journals too.

The solution - is not obvious to me.