-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Merckosoft?
Microsoft-Merck alliance boosts Amalga
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is getting into genetic data management through an agreement with
| Merck.
`----
http://healthcare.zdnet.com/?p=2333
Pearly is feeding their patents that cost lives and Merck is corrupting
journals (see below).
Bill Gates visits World Health Organization
,----[ Quote ]
| Chaib says media will be excluded from the meeting.
`----
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jZCmJsVtrriRa5dXaQuh3nd_RifAD98N2M103
Cocaine study that got up the nose of the US
,----[ Quote ]
| In the case of cocaine there is an even more striking precedent for evidence
| being ignored: the World Health Organisation (WHO) conducted what is probably
| the largest ever study of global use. In March 1995 they released a briefing
| kit which summarised their conclusions, with some tantalising bullet points.
|
| "Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and
| tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use," they
| said. "Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and
| more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less
| severe for occasional, low-dosage users."
|
| [...]
|
| At the point where mild cocaine use was described in positive tones the
| Americans presumably blew some kind of outrage fuse. This report was never
| published because the US representative to the WHO threatened to withdraw US
| funding for all its research projects and interventions unless the
| organisation "dissociated itself from the study" and cancelled publication.
| According to the WHO this document does not exist, (although you can read a
| leaked copy at www.tdpf.org.uk/WHOleaked.pdf).
`----
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/bad-science-cocaine-study
Recent:
Merck Makes Phony Peer-Review Journal
,----[ Quote ]
| It is this attitude within companies like Merck and among doctors that allows
| scandals precisely like this to happen. While the scandals with Merck and
| Vioxx are particularly egregious, we know they are not isolated incidents.
| This one is just particularly so. If physicians would not lend their names or
| pens to these efforts, and publishers would not offer their presses, these
| publications could not exist. What doctors would have as available data would
| be peer-reviewed research and what pharmaceutical companies produce from
| their marketing departments--actual advertisements.
`----
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/
Merck And Elsevier Exposed For Creating Fake Peer Review Journal
,----[ Quote ]
| Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that you can do when everything
| is locked up and proprietary, rather than open. There's almost no way to
| confirm or check the data or information to make sure it's legit, so people
| tend to assume it is. In that regard, perhaps it's no surprise that the two
| companies eventually went down this road, but it does highlight one of the
| problems with the way the system works today. As Shirky later points out this
| is hardly unique for a firm like Elsevier, which has faced some serious
| ethical questions regarding its publications in the past as well.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090503/1255574725.shtml
Elsevier Reveals More Details About Its Fake Journal Division
,----[ Quote ]
| Remember how Elsevier and Merck were caught putting out a fake journal that
| had articles favoring Merck drugs, implying peer reviewed articles that
| weren't? Soon afterwards, it came out that Elsevier had a whole division for
| such things. However, following an internal investigation, it looks like
| Elsevier is backtracking a bit and saying that, while the group's practices
| were problematic, most weren't as egregious as the "Australasian Journal of
| Bone and Joint Medicine (AJBJM)" that was created by Merck and Elsevier.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090606/0632555149.shtml
Elsevier Had A Whole Division Publishing Fake Medical Journals
,----[ Quote ]
| Remember a week ago when we wrote about pharma giant Merck and publishing
| giant Elsevier working together to publish a fake journal that talked up
| various Merck drugs and was used by doctors to show that the drugs were safe
| and useful?
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090510/2157144822.shtml
No bottom to worse at Elsevier?
,----[ Quote ]
| The latest development, though, strikes me as something that should be
| shouted from every available rooftop: Elsevier simply must answer the
| questions raised.
|
| Via Dorothea: Jonathan Rochkind has done a little "forensic librarianship"
| and raised astonishing questions about the entire imprint, Excerpta Medica,
| which published the fake journal that started all of this.
|
| Go read Jonathan, but the bottom line is this: Excerpta Medica does not
| provide a straightforward list of its own publications or make clear which
| are, ahem, "industry-sponsored".
`----
http://www.sennoma.net/main/archives/2009/05/no_bottom_to_worse_at_elsevier.php
Another Reason We Need Open Access
,----[ Quote ]
| One of the more laughable reasons that traditional science publishers cite in
| their attempts to rubbish open access is that it's somehow not so rigorous
| as "their" kind of publishing. There's usually a hint that standards might be
| dropped, and that open access journals aren't, well, you know, quite proper.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/05/another-reason-we-need-open-access.html
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAko1nzoACgkQU4xAY3RXLo4ogQCeKua1TjEfLSeKw9lcHkXSS0M1
4UkAnAkvJyV/GXx2rlgCfPgEyEON3cMK
=uU5B
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
|
|
