Scam Publisher OMICS International Buying Legitimate Journals

Hyderabad, India-based open-access publisher OMICS International is on a buying spree, snatching up legitimate scholarly journals and publishers, incorporating them into its mega-fleet of bogus, exploitative, and low-quality publications.

Sources indicate that OMICS has purchased the publisher Pulsus Group. In February, 2016, I reported on some strange activity surrounding the Canadian publisher Andrew John Publishing. Now is becoming clear that OMICS purchased Andrew John and is using it as a Canadian ‘base’ of sorts to purchase other Canadian journals, especially society journals.

The Pulsus Group website bears a London, UK address. Pulsus has published about two-dozen Canadian medical society journals, including these titles:

• Canadian Hearing Report
• Canadian Journal of Pathology
• Canadian Journal of General Internal Medicine
• Canadian Journal of Educators of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• Canadian Journal of Restorative Dentistry and Prosthodontics

The medical societies had contracted with Pulsus to manage the publishing of their journals for them, a common practice. Now there is panic among the staff and editors of many Canadian medical journals as they learn that OMICS International has purchased Pulsus.

OMICS International is not a bona fide scholarly publisher. It does not operate in good faith and victimizes honest researchers.

OMICS International is a major source of annoying spam and a threat to science. It is a predatory publisher and is included on my list. I have also added Pulsus to my list.

In addition, OMICS has set up a new publisher — called Open Access Journals — and is transferring some of its recently-acquired journals there.

OMICS’ new imprint Open Access Journals claims on its “contact us” page that it belongs to Pulsus and also shows a base in London, UK.

One of the journals in the fleet of OMICS’ Open Access Journals imprint is Neuropsychiatry. The journal has a legitimate impact factor and is included in the top academic indexes. The former publisher of this journal is Future Medicine. In fact, most of the Open Access Journals journals appear to have been purchased from Future Medicine.

A note on Future Medicine’s website says:

OMICS International is on a mission to take over all of scholarly publishing. It is purchasing journals and publishers and incorporating them into its evil empire. Its strategy is to saturate scholarly publishing with its low-quality and poorly-managed journals, aiming to squeeze out and acquire legitimate publishers.

Appendix

A. List of Pulsus journals as of 2016-09-23 (copied from the website)

1. 1. Allied Hearing Health
   2. Canadian Hearing Report
   3. Canadian Hearing Report enews
   4. Canadian IONM News
   5. Canadian Journal of Educators of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
   6. Canadian Journal of General Internal Medicine
   7. Canadian Journal of Medical of Sonography
   8. Canadian Journal of Pathology
   9. Canadian Journal of Respiratory Therapy
   10. Canadian Journal of Restorative Dentistry and Prosthodontics
   11. CASLPO Today
   12. Clinical Investigation
   13. Clinical Practice (Therapy)
   14. Current Research: Cardiology
   15. Current Research: Integrative Medicine
   16. Diabetes Management
   17. Imaging in Medicine
   18. International Journal of Clinical Rheumatology
   19. International Journal of Clinical Skills
   20. Interventional Cardiology
   21. Journal of Men’s Health
   22. Journal of Sexual & Reproductive Medicine
   23. Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada
   24. Listen/Écoute

1. Neuropsy
2. Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing
3. Plastic Surgery
4. Plastic Surgery: Case Studies
5. Signal
6. Sound Matters
7. Vascular Access
8. Vibes
9. Wavelength

List of Pulsus journals as of 2016-09-28 (copied from the website)

1. Plastic Surgery (Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, Canadian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Groupe pour l’Avancementde la Microchirurgie Canada, Canadian Society for Surgery of the Hand)
2. Plastic Surgery: Case Studies (Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, Canadian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Groupe pour l’Avancement de la Microchirurgie Canada, Canadian Society for Surgery of the Hand)
3. Canadian Journal of Respiratory Therapy (Canadian Society of Respiratory Therapists)
4. Current Research: Cardiology (International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences)
5. Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada (Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (AMMI) Canada)
6. Canadian Journal of Medical of Sonography (Sonography Canada)
7. Canadian IONM News (Canadian Association of Neurophysiological Monitoring (CANM))
8. Current Research: Integrative Medicine
9. Journal of Sexual & Reproductive Medicine
10. Diabetes Management
11. Interventional Cardiology
12. Clinical Practice (Therapy)
13. Clinical Investigation
14. International Journal of Clinical Rheumatology
15. Imaging in Medicine
16. Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing
17. Neuropsychiatry
18. International Journal of Clinical Skills
19. Canadian Hearing Report

B. List of Open Access Journals journals as of 2016-09-23:

1. Clinical Investigation
2. Clinical Practice (Therapy)
3. Diabetes Management
4. Imaging in Medicine
5. International Journal of Clinical Rheumatology
6. International Journal of Clinical Skills
7. Interventional Cardiology
8. Neuropsychiatry
9. Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing