Medical publication policies and guidelines offer a framework for best practices, but there may be situations when more than one approach seems reasonable. The primary purpose of “What Would You Do?” is to explore examples of such situations. With the limited information provided to interpret the scenarios, you may find yourself agreeing with one, more than one, or none of the proposed actions. And that’s the point ‒ you should debate, contemplate, and communicate (with a comment) before selecting your “best” answer.
Now let’s find out how you responded and read through some commentary (for context only; not meant to be comprehensive) to the below scenario:
You are a medical publication professional and have been supporting a client with a secondary manuscript for a Phase 3 study. You recommended target journals and worked with the author team throughout the submission process. After publication, it becomes apparent that the manuscript was submitted to a predatory journal. Unfortunately, the journal has no retraction policy and asks for a large sum of money in processing fees to retract the article. The authors have signed a copyright agreement giving the journal full copyright of the manuscript.
A. Request the editorial office to retract the manuscript and seek legal advice from the sponsor company; at the same time plan a resubmission to another journal.
B. Recommend against retraction as this can negatively impact reputation and review the copyright agreement to determine if you are able to submit elsewhere, such as to a preprint server.
C. Suggest that the authors add some new and substantive data to support submission to a new, reputable journal as a secondary publication.
D. Working with co-authors, write a response to the journal highlighting their policies and exposing them as a predatory journal and showcase this letter via authors’ social media channels.
A total of 72 people replied to this poll.
Journals and publishers are “predatory” or “pseudo“ when their primary purpose is to aggressively solicit and publish articles primarily for financial gain through the collection of author, processing, or publication fees (1-3). Unlike open access or reputable journals that also collect fees, predatory journals usually do not follow widely accepted principles of good publication practice (GPP; 1, 4) or scientific peer review, thus putting in question the integrity, originality, and ethics of the published research (ie, nearly any data can get published in these journals if the fees are paid) (1-3). Authors, departments, and organizations associated with research in predatory or pseudo-journals may have their reputations tarnished with the stigma of dubious research (ie, there must be something wrong with the methodology or data, otherwise they would have published in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal).
In this scenario, it appears that not all the appropriate pre-submission checks were conducted when the team evaluated the choice of target journal. With the potential stigma and reputational damage associated with publishing in a predatory journal, including the possibility of bringing to question the data from a phase 3 clinical trial, it is important to dissociate from the predatory journal and publish in a reputable journal. Thus, Option A is reasonable. It makes sense to seek legal advice at the onset, especially when copyrights are involved. Given that predatory journals are mainly interested in financial gain, the quickest way to remove the article may be to pay the fee for processing the retraction, which should also revoke any copyright agreement (legal should be consulted). The authors/sponsor may choose to pursue other legal action; however, this could result in a protracted process with challenges in identifying key employees or office locations of the predatory publisher (as this information is often not available or fictitious).
For Option B, any damage to reputation as part of the retraction is likely less of a concern than the reputational damage of having the article remain in the predatory journal. The reason for the retraction is not related to data integrity, it is solely on journal choice. It is also not necessarily a viable solution to submit to a pre-print server. While pre-prints may be a regular practice in some fields, for others, this would be an option only for data of utmost public health importance (which would not be the case for secondary data as described in this scenario) and often data need to be published in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal for it to be recognized by external stakeholders not associated with the research (eg, guideline committees).
Option C proposes that the authors create an adaptation so a new publication can be generated; however, this could require significant time and resources, may encourage “salami slicing” (5), and does not resolve the challenges already discussed of having data published in a predatory journal.
Option D suggests a call-to-action against the journal, but the end goal is unclear as this approach is unlikely to result in an article retraction nor change the practices of the journal, and the authors may wish to find a resolution to their mistake quietly instead of bringing more attention to the matter. Moreover, lists of predatory journals already exist online.
Ultimately, as part of GPP, it is up to the authors, publication teams, and/or medical writers to be aware of predatory journals in their fields and avoid selecting them for manuscript submission. All journals should be carefully assessed for credibility and proper editorial/publication practices (4). As a practical matter, it may be helpful to put together a comprehensive list of credible journals and publishers as a reference document and to always carefully vet any new journals that come up as a target.
Eric Y. Wong, PhD, MBA, ISMPP CMPPTM, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine
This article was prepared by the author in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed within are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine.
References
- Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (updated May 2023): https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
- Grudniewicz A, Moher D, Cobey KD, et al. Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature. 2019;576:210-2.
- American Medical Writers Association. AMWA-EMWA-ISMPP joint position statement on predatory publishing [Editorial]. Curr Med Res Opin. 2019;35:1657-8.
- DeTora LM, Toroser D, Sykes A, et al. Good Publication Practice (GPP) guidelines for company-sponsored biomedical research: 2022 update. Ann Intern Med. 2022 Sep;175(9):1298-1304.
- Eva KW. How would you like your salami? A guide to slicing. Med Educ. 2017 May;51(5):456-457.