News CMAJ Alleged predatory publisher buys medical journals ne of the world’s most well- known “predatory” publishers O has bought two commercial Canadian publishers of about 16 medi- cal specialty journals. But one former owner says during the purchasing negotiations, the new publisher agreed not use predatory practices. The journals were previously pub- lished by Pulsus Group in Oakville, Ontario, and Andrew John Publishing in Dundas, Ontario. As of September 28, the journals appear on the Pulsus Group website, which gives an address in Lon- don, UK, where Pulsus Group UK was registered in August 2016. It is a subsid- Pulsus Group iary of OMICS International of Hyder- Pulsus journals are now owned by a newly created subsidiary of OMICS International, abad, India, which is facing charges from an alleged predatory publisher based in Hyderabad, India. the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for “deceiving academics and researchers OMICS. Brockington learned this during nals’ impact factors and listing in Scopus about the nature of its publications and a conference call with the new publisher and PubMed, in order to look legitimate, hiding publication fees ranging from hun- when she asked who now owned Pulsus he adds. dreds to thousands of dollars,” according Group. When she contacted editors of Beall says OMICS’ main practice is to an FTC statement. other Pulsus journals, they were unaware to “hold papers hostage.” Authors sub- Prior to this latest sale, back in that the new publisher was OMICS. mit papers in response to spam emails December 2015, Pulsus sold four jour- When Robert Kalina decided to looking for submissions. “The next nals to Hindawi, an open-access pub- retire after running Pulsus since 1984, thing they know the paper has been pub- lisher based in Cairo, Egypt. In June he said he searched for potential buyers, lished and they’ve got an invoice for 2016, Pulsus told its remaining journals but could find “no other takers” for the $2000. They ask to withdraw it, and it was selling them to an unnamed “inter- remaining journals. In an emailed state- OMICS won’t withdraw it unless you national publisher,” according to Carly ment he said, “Scientific publishing has pay a fee.” This practice is mentioned in Brockington, managing editor of the been my life and I took great care in the FTC charges, which also noted Canadian Journal of Respiratory Ther- crafting an agreement with OMICS that “many articles are published with little apy (CJRT). In late August, Pulsus exec- would continue to protect the societies’ to no peer review and numerous individ- utives told Brockington that Pulsus interests. I would not have trusted sell- uals represented to be editors have not would merge with Andrew John but they ing the name Pulsus to them if I thought agreed to be affiliated with the journals.” would be run as separate companies. otherwise.” He stated that he believed Kalina said that journals are not However, the journals published by OMICS bought Pulsus in order to “start forced to go to OMICS. “Since most of Andrew John were told in mid-Septem- anew” as a legitimate publisher. The these journals are owned by the societ- ber they had been sold to iMedPub, a FTC charges surfaced after the sale. ies, they are, for the most part, free to subsidiary of OMICS, says Dr. Stephen Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the Univer- choose their own publisher. We have Hwang, president of the Canadian sity of Colorado Denver who blogs about offered our help to all societies wishing Society of Internal Medicine, which predatory publishers, says OMICS’ pred- not to work with OMICS to terminate owns the Canadian Journal of General atory practices are well known. Predatory their agreement,” and two journals Internal Medicine. All the former Pul- publishers exploit a fully open access have asked to terminate. sus and Andrew John journals now model “for their own gratuitous profit,” However, Brockington said CJRT appear on the Pulsus website; the said Beall. Predatory publishers usually was offered no such assistance. It is now Andrew John website has closed down. start “counterfeit” journals, and OMICS seeking termination of its contract with Attempts to reach owners of Andrew is the only one that has previously bought the help of a lawyer. — Carolyn Brown, John for a response were unsuccessful. legitimate journals, Beall says. “OMICS Ottawa, Ont. Brockington and Hwang were not is not only buying journals, it is buying told that the new publisher was in fact metrics and indexing,” such as the jour- CMAJ 2016. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.109-5338 E398 CMAJ, November 1, 2016, 188(16) © 2016 Joule Inc. or its licensors.