by Claire Robinson and Jonathan Latham, PhD
Richard Smith, former editor of the
British Medical Journal, has
jested that instead of scientific peer review, its rival
The Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached the bottom. On another occasion, Smith was challenged to publish an issue of the
BMJ exclusively comprising papers that had failed peer review and see if anybody noticed. He replied, "How do you know I haven't already done it?"
As Smith's stories show, journal editors have a lot of power in science - power that provides opportunities for abuse. The life science industry knows this, and has increasingly moved to influence and control science publishing.
The strategy, often with the willing cooperation of publishers, is effective and sometimes blatant. In 2009, the scientific publishing giant Elsevier was found to have invented an
entire medical journal, complete with editorial board, in order to publish papers promoting the products of the pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck. Merck provided the papers, Elsevier published them, and doctors read them, unaware that the
Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine was simply a stuffed dummy.
Fast forward to September 2012, when the scientific journal
Food and Chemical Toxicology (
FCT) published a study that caused an international storm (
Séralini, et al. 2012). The study, led by Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, France, suggested a Monsanto genetically modified (GM) maize, and the Roundup herbicide it is grown with, pose serious health risks. The two-year feeding study found that rats fed both suffered severe organ damage and increased rates of tumors and premature death. Both the herbicide (Roundup) and the GM maize are Monsanto products. Corinne Lepage, France's former environment minister, called the study
"a bomb".
Comment: Through this assassination of a Lebanese leader, Israel also exposed its direct role in spreading terrorism throughout Syria.