ASH Clinical News ACN_4.1_FULL_ISSUE_DIGITAL | Page 74

BACK of the BOOK Heard in the Blogosphere ASH The Race to Publish in Worthless Journals Cuts to @NIH hurt biomedical research & our ability to conquer blood diseases. That’s why we’re urging Congress to #RaisetheCaps! #CutsHurt In academic medicine, the term “predatory journals” refers to journals that take advantage of unsuspecting, well-meaning researchers – charging authors high article-processing fees in exchange for another publication to add to their CVs. However, some experts believe the relationship has become less “predator and prey” and more a willing symbiosis. In The New York Times, authors and researchers shared their opinions on the dangers of the “publish or perish” academic environment that fuels this ongoing problem. @ASH_hematology Jay Bradner, MD @jaybradner I  find there are 2 types of nerds: planet/moon and gene/atom. Firmly in the latter category, back to the total eclipse of disease ... Sara Jiang, MD “When hundreds of thousands of publications appear in predatory journals, it stretches credulity to believe all the authors and universities they work for are victims.” —Derek Pyne, PhD, an economics professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia @Sara_Jiang  ortune cookie pressure #writeabook F #academicfortunes “[The motivation behind publishing in predatory journals] is a touchy subject. If you were tricked by spam email you might not want to admit it, and if you did it wittingly to increase your publication counts you might also not want to admit it.” —Katarzyna Pisanski, PhD-C, a psychologist at the University of Sussex in England “If something gets published in one of these journals and it’s complete garbage, it can develop a life of its own. Think about human medicine and how much is on the line. When people publish something that is not replicable, it can have health impacts.” —Dewayne Fox, PhD, an associate professor in the department of agriculture and natural resources at Delaware State University Adam Cifu, MD @adamcifu Someday we’ll replace silly names (conventional, traditional, alternative, integrative) with “effective medicine” & “ineffective medicine.” Justin B. Dimick, MD, MPH @jdimick1  ne of our @UM_IHPI research fellows, @leejs5, O asked all the other fellows for 3 words that describe a great mentor. Here are the results: Removing Barriers to High-Cost Cancer Drugs “The company that developed [tisagenlecleucel] is offering to refund the money if it doesn’t work within a month. … This unusual arrangement, a type of value-based or outcomes-based contract, could be a template for similar deals over many innovative, high-cost drugs, [but] value-based contracting alone isn’t likely to be the sole solution to the coming tidal wave of innovative, high-cost treatments. … Alternative approaches to financing them are needed, especially for public programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Congress should require the National Academy of Medicine to study alternatives and report back on options. After all, there are problems worse than coping with the coming wave of high cost, often highly e