Merck Elsevier Confused about Information
May 3, 2009
At a Derby party yesterday, a number of still working journalists asked me about the “integrity” of a Web log. The idea was that working for a big publishing company conferred some seal of approval. There are Web log writers who purport to bring a standard of excellence to Web logs. My view is that any information regardless of publisher or medium has to be viewed with a “trust but verify” mind set. Sure. That requires work on the part of the reader, but in today’s world, trickery is not just easy, an indifferent reader makes discovery unlikely. At the party, I explained that the Web log you are reading is a marketing effort. I don’t charge. I have a policy of recycling information that is either old or not in my for fee work. I write columns for money and those get more of my attention than a Web log post commenting about a wacky explanation abut enterprise search by a business intelligence professional or a SharePoint certified professional.
What I lacked yesterday was a recent, concrete example of big companies getting cute with information. I now have a good example. I don’t know if it is true, and I don’t have an easy way to determine if Merck and Elsevier were confused or dabbling in disinformation. You can read the item and draw your own conclusion.
The story “Merck Makes Phony Peer-Review Journal” in the Bioethics.net Web log here reported:
The Scientist has reported that, yes, it’s true, Merck cooked up a phony, but real sounding, peer reviewed journal and published favorably looking data for its products in them. Merck paid Elsevier to publish such a tome, which neither appears in MEDLINE or has a Web site, according to The Scientist. What’s wrong with this is so obvious it doesn’t have to be argued for.
A big publishing company took money from a big drug company. Now what about the integrity of a Web log? My thought it that one cannot trust information from any source. Reader beware.
Stephen Arnold, May 5, 2009
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