Why did a pediatric journal publish articles on the elderly?
In June, a scientist researching sarcopenia came across a relevant paper about treatment for elderly patients with complications from the disease as well as type 2 diabetes. The paper was “very bad. It looked like someone just copied two or three times the same text.”
The scientist, who asked to remain anonymous, became even more concerned when he realized the paper, which had the word “elderly” in its title, had been published in a pediatric journal. “I started reading other issues of the same journal and noticed that this is a widespread problem: Chinese papers about older adults being published in pediatric journals!” he said.
The volume of the journal with the sarcopenia paper, Minerva Pediatrics, included 29 articles, of which at least eight letters to the editor described experiments and clinical trials with adult participants. Three other journals from the publisher, Minerva Medica, were denied impact factors by Clarivate this year due to suspicion of citation manipulation.
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