The high costs of publishing traditional journals open the door for sponsored content

In April 2009, an online life sciences magazine, The-Scientist.com carried a curious story about a journal called The Australasian Journal of Bone and Medicine that was published in the early part of the century. The journal published by the reputed publisher Elsevier reprinted articles from other Elsevier journals and carried some news and reviews. Nothing unusual, except the journal was fully paid for by Merck and was started with the express intent of supporting drugs made by the pharmaceutical giant. Worse still, Elsevier