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Rant: 3 weeks trying to debunk a viral 'study' about coffee, turned out the journal was fake
Back in March a coworker sent me a link to a study saying 4 cups of coffee a day cuts heart attack risk by 30 percent, and it was everywhere, shared like 80k times. I figured whatever, let me actually check the source before I repeat it at the station. Took me 3 weeks of poking around, and the journal it came from was listed on a site that sells article slots for $500. I emailed the lead author twice, got nothing back, and the domain for the journal went dead around day 12. The wild part is the headline number came from a sample of 43 people, and the coffee group was self reported over a phone survey. So a site made up a journal, paid to look legit, and a hot take was born. How do you all spot these paper mill journals before you waste 3 weeks on them?
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henry_ross1d ago
Reminds me of when my kid did a science fair project on whether plants grow better with music. She found this "international journal of plant acoustics" online that had a whole article about it. Turned out the "journal" was just a blog with a fancy header image and a made up editor named Dr. something. The dead giveaway was the contact page just had a gmail address. Now I check if a journal shows up in PubMed or has a real office somewhere before I trust anything. Saves a lot of time versus emailing ghost authors for weeks. Funny thing is her project still won second place using the plant music idea anyway.
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