Oops, Fake-Out

Merck published a journal containing reprinted or review articles that reported data favorable to the drug company, all without disclosing its sponsorship of the journal, says The Scientist. The journal, called the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, was published by a division of Elsevier, to which Merck paid an undisclosed sum, the article says. "To the jaundiced eye, [the journal] might be detected for what it is: marketing," Public Citizen's Peter Lurie says. "Many doctors would fail to identify that and might be influenced by what they read."