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.
