Thou Shalt Not Publish

Will science publishing survive the internet

Do you remember the ‘good old days’ before Tim Berners Lee brought us the world wide web? Scientists of my generation will recall the intensely laborious task of preparing a manuscript for submission to a journal in hope of its eventual publication and appearance in hard copy on a library shelf. You were lucky if the whole process took less than six months. But you were also confident that if you had the science right then your research would be published. Take a look at hard copies of the journals back then and compare with the same journal today. It is not difficult to see the main difference. Advertisements, often disguised as ‘promotions’ or ‘sponsored content’ or something similar in today’s journals. So, who is really pulling the strings in today’s scientific publishing, the editor or the publisher. Of course, probably 90% of published science is entirely benign and not an issue for those industries advertising in the various publications. Indeed, many published science papers represent free advertising for industry through citations of products used in carrying out the research. However, it is now commonplace that publishers step in and put pressure on editors who have accepted a manuscript that ‘industry’ does not consider as benign. It is no longer simply about a manuscript not being accepted for review by a journal it is about fully peer-reviewed published papers being retracted by an editor post publication.

I wrote about this issue in my book where I named several major publishers as being guilty of pre- and post publication censorship. You may be aware of the recent example in the Springer-Nature journal Cureus. A more blatant case of post publication censorship you will not find. I now find myself in an unusual position with respect to post publication interference in science. In 2020 we published our seminal paper on aluminium in brain tissue in familial Alzheimer's disease. The Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, George Perry, one of the pre-eminent scientists in the field of Alzheimer’s disease, called it a landmark paper in linking aluminium to the disease. He was right. It leaves no doubt that aluminium has a role to play in Alzheimer’s disease. It is a stake through the heart of the aluminium industry and in this instance the journal’s editor had no issue with pushing that stake a little bit deeper into the bosom of a wholly corrupt industry.

So, imagine my surprise, even shock, when just a few days ago I receive an email from George Perry telling me that they were about to publish a Letter to the Editor on our ‘landmark’ paper. Well, not because of a Letter to the Editor, but because the letter had been solicited by George Perry from a known aluminium industry troll. I recognised the author of this so-called Letter immediately as a regular internet commentator on our research. His letter contained the same spurious non-science and nonsense that he had been plying across various internet sites for several years. Needless to say I had never given his comments any credibility by replying to them. However, I now found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to understand what was actually afoot. You can read how I replied here.

Whatever the true reason behind this episode in post-publication interference in science you can bet your bottom dollar that the troll will now revel in having had his letter published in the highest ranking journal on the subject of Alzheimer’s disease. He will use this success wherever and whenever he can to dispute the research in our paper. George Perry has given this troll legitimacy and a license to spread his misinformation far and wide under the premise of being published in a reputable journal.

Whether this will be the end of this story I cannot tell. It doesn’t bode well if one of the most highly respected scientists and journal editors has been corrupted by the publishers of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. I hope that this is not the case.