All those OMICS linked companies in one place

So I’ve been spending a bit too much time in recent weeks knee deep in dodgy “open access” journals for some stories I hope to get up in the not too distant future

Predatory “open access” journals are popping up all over the place – online-based publications that allow researchers to publish papers for a fee, in return for offering a peer-review and copy-checking service that’s shonky at best.

One company facing such allegations is OMICS International. The US government’s Federal Trade Commission is currently pursuing OMICS in court on allegations that their journals and conferences are guilty of deceptive marketing practices.  OMICS denies the charges.  A lawyer at FTC has confirmed to me that the case is currently in the “discovery” stage, ending in early March 2018.

I’ve written a few pieces now where OMICS has been involved. The more I look, the more trading names I find.

This blog post is really a way to record and document these multiple trading names associated with OMICS and its managing director Srinubabu Gedela.

Aside from the concerns from allegations raised by the FTC, an OMICS environment journal gave the job of editor-in-chief to a climate science denier who advises the Heartland Institute – one of the most notorious of all denial groups. That editor, Arthur Viterito, left that journal a few months ago after serving a year.

An OMICS climate conference in Rome in October 2017 – under the trading name ConferenceSeries LLC – was hijacked by a group of climate science deniers.

One academic who unwittingly attended the Rome meeting thinking it was a genuine conference has told me he was “appalled” to find the first speaker was a “climate denier” and, after conversations over the first coffee break, he found other attendees who were also denialists.  So he left.

One invite to a 2017 climate conference in Rome read, quite gloriously:

“Climate Change 2017 is specifically premeditated with a unifying axiom providing pulpit to widen the imminent scientific creations. The main theme of the conference is “Today’s Progress and Tomorrow’s Climate Challenges” which covers a broad array of vitally key sessions.”

OMICS and their associated trading names have hundreds of journals and organise hundreds of meetings and conferences every year. No doubt they have many satisfied customers. Others, not so much.

But here’s a list of all the organisations I’ve come across linked to OMICS and Srinubabu Gedela. I’ll update it as I find more.

Author: Graham

Graham Readfearn is a Brisbane-based journalist. Go to the About page in the top navigation for more information.

5 thoughts on “All those OMICS linked companies in one place”

    1. The money behind Gedela is the thousands of scientists who unwillingly or willingly let themselves be fooled into submitting papers and/or go to conferences. Some of these OMICS journals charge more than 3000 dollar per article. That’s higher than any of the PLoS journals, but there you can expect solid peer review, support to the Editorial Board members, and other aspects that explain these costs.

  1. There are a few more, Graham. Andrew John Publishing is also an OMICS company, just like Pulsus Group, which also runs conferences.

    Interestingly, both companies report to be located in the UK, at the same address as EuroSciCon and Allied Academies. However, Pulsus Group is listed in the UK registry as dissolved as of January 16, 2018, while Andrew John Publishing is not listed at all.

    Allied Academies and EuroSciCon are apparently both late in filing “confirmation statements”. Not sure what those are.

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