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Journalists have published a fake cancer study in an unpublished scientific journal as part of an extensive investigation into unscrupulous publications, reported on Thursday, July 19, 2018 Le Monde . The purpose of the investigation was to show that anyone, on condition of paying, could pbad "false science" for real. The journalists of two German media, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and the public radio NDR have transmitted to the journal Journal of Integrative Oncology "the results of a study showing that propolis extract was more effective on colorectal cancer than conventional chemotherapy "
A publication accepted in less than ten days
Propolis is a resinous substance derived from trees and transformed by bees to build the cells of their hives. "The study was fictitious, the data produced, and the authors, affiliated to an imaginary research institute, did not exist either, but the publication was accepted in less than ten days and published on April 24" explained Le Monde. The daily's website offers a link to an archived version of this study, which was removed after the review was notified.
It states that the researchers compared the effectiveness of chemotherapy with propolis capsules. Moreover, the conclusion of the pseudo-scientific article speaks of an unrelated subject, the effect of mbadage on thromboembolic diseases. German Research Minister Anja Karliczek said she was in favor of an investigation to determine why the false study was published. "It's in the interest of science itself" she said, quoted by the German news agency DPA. According to her, everything must be done "so that credibility and trust in science are not affected (…) It is good that such errors are brought to light. that so that we can change what is wrong ".
" Dozens of unscrupulous publishers "
The magazine in question is published by a publisher Indian, Omics. But according to The World it is "dozens of unscrupulous publishers" who "have created hundreds of free-access journals with the name of snoring, having all the finery of real scholarly journals" . They affect a multitude of scientific disciplines. Without any control on the quality of the presented works, they claim to the authors "some hundreds of euros" by article, according to Le Monde and NDR . In the most prestigious journals, where to publish requires review by expert scientists in the same field (called "peer review"), and where the validation process usually takes several months, authors do not always pay. A journalist from NDR also reported on the air improvising, with a colleague, researcher in computer science through a fake university website and false references to scientific articles. Both even intervened in a conference where they "received a prize at the end".
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