Jamie Brodie 01 - Cited to Death

this published, with a p-value at that level."
    "Huh." I thought for a minute. "You know, academic publishing is changing. There are a lot of second- and third-tier journals out there now that will take a paper that the top tier journals won't. I haven't looked at the specifics of this journal, whether it's even peer reviewed or not."
    "Then maybe you should." Pete stood up. "I'm gonna get a beer. Want one?"
    "Sure." I turned on my laptop. Pete brought me an open bottle, and we clinked our bottles together. "Here's to research."
    Pete laughed. "You're such a nerd."
    "Yep. Out and proud, dude."
    We both laughed at that. My laptop was ready, so I got online and did a search for the Journal of Stem Cell Biology. Its website appeared. I swung the laptop around so Pete could see it too.
    "The first thing to check is the publisher. And the publisher here is called..." I had to click in a couple of pages. "...Biology Journals Publishers. Okay, never heard of them, so it's not one of the big publishing houses. Let's see where they're located..." another click "...Sri Lanka. Okay, that's not a good sign. Next question, is it peer reviewed?"
    Pete pointed to the screen. "It says there that it is."
    "Yeah, but just because they say it doesn't make it true. I need to look at the instructions for authors." I read through those. "See, here, it doesn't say anything about the author's submitted paper going through the peer review process. Which means it's extremely likely that the peer review process doesn't happen."
    "Wow." Pete leaned back. "So, pretty much anyone can start their own journal now and publish anything they want?"
    "Yep." I clicked on the contents page for the current issue. "Look at this. Most of the articles are written by the same two guys in this issue. It looks to me like this is mostly a vanity publication for these guys, who happen to be the editors, with an occasional contribution from elsewhere."
    "So how does a journal like that get indexed in a medical database?"
    "Well, it was in an obscure database. That's why I couldn't find the full text myself. If it had been in Medline or one of the other major medical databases, I could have printed it out myself."
    Pete snorted softly. "And had Oliver at your doorstep even sooner than he was."
    "True." I stretched. "Okay. So. Oliver comes back from Cambridge, and he and Wray want to open a lab. The profile I read said that they got a grant to open it at first. I wonder if they're still getting grant money?"
    "You could find out." Pete gestured to my laptop. "Federal grants have to be listed somewhere. It might take some digging."
    "Yeah. But the grants also could be private. The newspaper story kind of implied that they were privately funded now."
    "Those grants might be hard to uncover. Although, if they were made from private, not-for-profit organizations, those organizations might list them."
    I mused. "You know, the first thing that struck me about both Oliver and Ben Goldstein, when I met them, was how well they were dressed. They were both wearing Armani suits that run about two grand each, and thousand dollar shoes. That's when it occurred to me to check on their backgrounds because I couldn't believe that research paid that well."
    Pete shrugged. "Maybe they have family money. Or married well."
    "Yeah, maybe. Either way, if they opened the lab with a grant, they'd have to have something to show for the money if they were going to keep the grant or get new ones. And their procedure works, but it doesn't work as well as it should. So they get a paper published, in a journal of questionable reputation, that lets them report their results as successful with p values that are set too high."
    Pete nodded. "If their grants are from private foundations that are sloppy about their due diligence, then maybe all they need is a paper published in a supposedly peer-reviewed journal that says the procedure works. The foundations don't know any better, they just read the abstract, and they keep forking over the dough."
    "So it's almost like they're running a scam."
    "Yeah. Did you find anything to indicate whether they're treating patients or not?"
    "No. I didn't get that impression." An idea occurred to me. "You know...it might be instructive to pay a visit to the lab. Dr. Oliver told me to contact him if I had any more questions. So he wouldn't think anything about it if I did call him. I could look around, see if I can find any patients in the place."
    "Whoa." Pete