Precision Scientific Editing

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American Medical Writers Association, Medical Communication News, April 19, 2017

As part of a personal campaign against predatory publishers—and MedCrave Group, in particular—the founder of Precision Scientific Editing cooked up a phony case report for submission to one of the group's journals. John H. McCool wrote a LinkedIn article warning about MedCrave last year, but without much impact, after being approached by its Journal of Nanomedicine Research. When another publication associated with MedCrave, Urology & Nephrology Open Access Journal, recently invited McCool—who is not a urologist or doctor of any kind—to contribute, the editor seized his second chance to expose the fraud. Borrowing names and scenarios from the hit television show Seinfeld, he fabricated a case study and offered it up for consideration. Despite the fake author and co-authors, non-existent scientific institution they were purportedly associated with, and the unreal condition of uromycitisis that the case study was built around, the journal accepted the manuscript and published it online on March 31. While the publication claimed it performed peer review, McCool notes that even the most basic fact-checking should have given the editors pause. Instead, they ran the case report and charged him $799 for doing so. Not only does McCool have no intention of paying the fee, but he hopes that his charade will help others see MedCrave's duplicity and, ultimately, wipe out predatory journals altogether.

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