Knocking off a quick pharmaceutical intervention

(Or, if not, knocking a pharmaceutical intervention journal)

Keith S. Taber

Yesterday,

Yesterday I was setting up a discrete webpage for characterising predatory journals as my page on 'Journals and poor academic practice' was looking a bit text heavy. I was listing a number of the features that I saw in invitations to publish in journals that seemed to fit the descriptor 'predatory' (after my money, and not really interested in the quality of scholarship they publish).

…today…

As if by magic…

When I turned on the computer this morning I found an email from the Journal of Pharmaceutical Interventions asking me to contribute to the journal. It was almost like they were looking to offer an illustration of several of the features I was highlighting:

• being in a rush to get submissions (perhaps because they do not seem to have published a single article yet)
• accepting a wide range of different 'article' types
• praising my eminence in a field I have never worked in
• name-checking and claiming to have read something (of little relevance to the inviting journal!) I've published
• a relatively broad range of topics ¹

This does not prove that the journal will not have high editorial standards, but it is not looking promising. ²

…and tomorrow?

I guess I will be pretty busy if I am going to learn enough about the field of Pharmaceutical Interventions to produce something of publishable quality within a week.

Notes

¹ The list in the email does not look overly inclusive, but the website (https://www.scriptionpublications.org/journal-details/10/Journal-of-Pharmaceutical-Interventions – accessed 2021-11-18) offers the following list of topics a being within the journal's scope – including some that certainly do not look like pharmaceutical science to me!

• Analytical Chemistry
• Bioanalytical Chemistry
• Bio-Chemical Science
• Biomedical Engineering
• Bio-medical Sciences
• Biopharmaceutics
• Biopharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics
• Clinical and Hospital Pharmacy
• Computational Chemistry
• Cosmetics and Neutraceuticals
• Dental and Medical Sciences
• Drug Design
• Drug Development
• Drug Discovery
• Drug Regulatory Affairs
• Drug Targeting
• Drug-Receptor Interactions
• Environmental Chemistry
• Environmental Sciences
• Fermentation Technology
• Fisheries and Dairy Science
• Food and Nutrition Science
• Genetics and Proteomics
• Genomics
• Green Chemistry
• Health Sciences
• Herbal Technology
• Industrial Pharmacy
• Intellectual property rights in Chemical Sciences
• Life Sciences
• Marine Biology
• Medical Pharma
• Medication Management
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Medicine and Neurobiology
• Microbiology and Nuclear Pharmacy
• Molecular Drug Design
• Nanomedicine
• Nanotechnology/ nanomedicine
• Natural Chemistry
• Natural Product Research
• Novel Drug Delivery Systems
• Oncology
• Patent Laws
• Pharma Administration
• Pharma Engineering
• Pharmaceutical Analysis
• Pharmaceutical Analysis
• Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Microbiology
• Pharmaceutical Care
• Pharmaceutical Chemistry
• Pharmaceutical Formulation
• Pharmaceutical Public Health
• Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Pharmaceutics
• Pharmacodynamics
• Pharmacoeconomics
• Pharmacoepidemiology
• Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics
• Pharmacogenomics
• Pharmacogenomics and Physiology
• Pharmacognosy and Ethanobotany
• Pharmacology and Toxicology
• Pharmacotherapy
• Pharmacovigilance
• Pharmacovigilance
• Pharmacy Practice and Hospital Pharmacy
• Physiological and Biochemical Effects of Drugs on the Body
• Phytochemistry
• Phytochemistry and QC / QA
• Phytomedicine
• Plant pathology and Entomology
• Polymer Sciences
• Quality Assurance
• Regulatory Affairs
• Soil and Seed Science
• Synthetic Chemistry

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² The journal claims:

"Every article submitted to our platform is peer-reviewed by a distinguished editorial board and expert reviewers at the same moment, peer reviewers follow rigorous publication ethics thus confirming the article standards of significance and scientific excellence and deliver a quality systematic service to the Authors, Reviewers and Readers throughout the publication process….Every article submitted to the journal is rigorously examined and published only after the acceptance of Editorial Board members."

I would be happy to learn this is so, and that rigorous editorial processes are simply not well reflected by the sloppy direct marketing approach to encouraging submissions. I guess only time will tell.