Recently, online science journals have been under scrutiny for publishing false information regarding exchange of money.

A huge undercover study revealed the truth that is related to false information published in online science journals. It revealed that the false information would at least trouble doctors, policy makers, patients, academia and anybody who relies on the scientific journals.

Science contributor, John Bohannon, intentionally sent a fake research article to 305 online journals to observe how common the practice of publishing fake articles is. More than half of the online journals reviewed it and accepted it.

According to the fake report that was sent for publishing, a chemical extracted from lichen to kill cancer was discovered. The new drug was only tested on cancer cells, not on healthy cells. Thus, giving no clue related to its effect i. e. whether it was specific to cancer cells or all cells. This fake report was accepted by 157 publications.

Some journals asked for fees between $500 and $3100, but some did not take any money from the authors. In fact, readers were charged for subscribing trading journals.

According to an Edmonton Journal report, Bohannan noticed that many of these fake publications claimed to be in the U. S. However, IP addresses of nearly 200 publications showed that they were in China.