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Pseudo-science
OMICS Publishing Group has once again provided evidence that it is merely a scholarly vanity press. OMICS just published a paper entitled,
“Prevalence of Autism is Positively Associated with the Incidence of Type 1 Diabetes, but Negatively Associated with the Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes, Implication for the Etiology of the Autism Epidemic”
The paper is available here [PDF] and is published in volume 2, number 3 of the OMICS journal Open Access Scientific Reports.
The article is reviewed in the blog SkewedDistribution, whose anonymous author claims to be a university epidemiologist. A recent post in the blog completely trashes the article.
The blog post is entitled, “More ‘proof’ that vaccines cause autism? Seriously. This paper sucks.”
The blogger begins by saying:
Today I would like to walk you through the latest steaming turd of a “study” being bandied about by the anti-vaxxers, which they tout as the holy grail: an allegedly peer-reviewed article showing that vaccines unquestionably cause autism. The paper is written by one John B. Classen, and is such a horrific pile of non-science that it is hard to know where to begin a critique.
The author goes on to tear apart the paper’s methodology and finds that the paper’s conclusions are not supported by the data the paper presents.
In concluding, the blogger states,
Thus, we have a gentleman [the paper's author] who potentially stands to profit directly from sowing fear of vaccinations. This type of person generally stimulates cries of “Pharma Shill!” from the anti-vaxxers, yet for some reason he has been accepted into the warm, yet stupid, embrace of the anti-vax community.
It’s likely that no honest, quality, peer-reviewed journal would ever publish such an article, so that’s why the author probably chose OMICS as the publisher.
In my opinion, honest and conscientious scholars should not submit their work to any of OMICS’ many journals. No scholar wants his work to appear in the same journal that publishes pseudo-science. Publishing such rubbish devalues all the other papers in the journal.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
