12 THE SCIENTIST | the-scientist.com
CRITIC AT LARGEI Published a Paper Claiming
Pokémon Caused Coronavirus
O
n March 18, 2020, theAmerican
Journal of Biomedical Science
& Research published my paper
claiming that eating a bat-like Pokémon
sparked the spread of COVID-19. This
paper, “Cyllage City COVID-19 outbreak
linked to Zubat consumption,” blames a
fictional creature for an outbreak in a fic-
tional city, cites fictional references (includ-
ing one from author Bruce Wayne in
Gotham Forensics Quarterly on using bats
to fight crime), and is cowritten by fictional
authors such as Pokémon’s Nurse Joy and
House, MD. Nonetheless, four days after
submission, editor Catherine Nichols was
“cheerful to inform” me via email that it had
“received positive review comments” and
was accepted for publication.
It’s not the only fake paper on Poké-
mon I’ve had published or accepted for
publication, covering creatures from
Pikachu to Porygon. Some would argue
that editors cannot recognize Pokémon
names, but lines in the text such as “a
journal publishing this paper does not
practice peer review and must therefore
be predatory” or “this invited article is in
a predatory journal that likely does not
practice peer review” would have tipped
off anyone who bothered to read the arti-
cles. These papers did not slip in under
the radar; they were welcomed in blindly.
The journals that accepted my papers
are predatory. They appear legitimate,
but practice no peer review, no editing,
not even a reality check. Publishers such
as BiomedGrid (which publishes American
Jour nal of Biomedical Science & Research),
OMICS, or Longdom Publishing will
accept anything so long as authors
agree to pay the open access fees, whichrange from less than $100 to several
thousand dollars. (I have not paid a
penny so far, as some of these journals
publish submitted manuscripts before
receiving payment.) Predatory journals
are just expensive blogs, no more reli-
able as sources of scientific information
than a celebrity’s Twitter feed, yet unfor-
tunately equally trusted in some circles.
To make matters worse, my Pokémon-
inspired paper on the novel coronavi-
rus has already been cited. A physicist
based in Tunisia published “The COVID-
19 outbreak’s multiple effects,” which
claimed that COVID-19 was human-
made and is treatable with “provincial
herbs,” in another predatory journal,
The International Journal of Engineering
Research and Technology. He not onlycited my article, but also cited one of my
made-up references, “Signs and symp-
toms of Pokérus infection,” as the paper
that first identified SARS-CoV-2. When I
asked the author how this happened, he
failed to see any problem with citing
a paper he never read while writing a
paper outside his field, and was unaware
of the difference between open access
and predatory journals. The difference—
editing and peer review—is critical: when
it comes to public health, fake journals
are a real danger.
While evidence shows that the major-
ity of authors publishing in predatory jour-
nals are naive researchers from develop-
ing countries, ample opportunity exists to
use such venues deliberately to push fraud
and misinformation. What is stoppingIn the midst of an infectious disease pandemic, a science publishing
experiment exposes the danger of predatory publishers.BY M ATA N SHELOMIThey appear legitimate, but practice no peer review,
no editing, not even a reality check.SONJA PINCK