Some of you may have read about Juul, a for-profit manufacturer of e-cigarettes, that recently published 11 studies in a special edition of the American Journal of Health Behavior. According to reporting in the New York Times, Juul paid $51,000 to publish internal studies that point to the efficacy of using Juul products to help in smoking cessation. Juul also paid the $6500 fee to make the articles Open Access and immediately available to the public; they can all be accessed here. Coincidentally, Juul is in a battle with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who will (by September) decide the fate of e-cigarettes and their availability in the United States. This issue has blown up the publishing and health sciences research community, bringing to the forefront issues of ethics and the prevalence of predatory publication. In the midst of the public backlash and in the wake of the release of the special edition, three editors of the American Journal of Health Behavior resigned. The ripples will be felt for a long while. 

The UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center condemns this misuse of the scholarly publishing mechanism for the promotion of a commercial product. Research has continued to emphasize e-cigarettes’ harms and addictive qualities (access relevant studies/abstracts here). We vehemently oppose this type of unethical publishing and any outlet that promulgates the spreading of misinformation. 

HSLIC encourages patrons and researchers to be vigilant and alert for this type of publishing. We have a couple of resources that will help you in your review of a wide breadth of information sources, including those purported to be reputable and/or peer reviewed:

If you have questions about a resource you've found, or are generally curious about whether the publication you're reviewing has problematic publishing practices, you may contact a HSLIC librarian and work with one of us. We are always happy to provide you with more resources to help guide your research.