Welcome to “Gaslight Journals”

There’s a new type of journal in the world, what we’re calling the “gaslight journal.” These are journals exist not to enlighten, but to distort, mislead, and misinform. Their operators typically represent a blend of ideological, commercial, or personal incentives, which guide what they publish. These are not true scientific journals, but they are intended to look enough like them to fool the casual reader.

Once fringe, today they are backed by big money, big conspiracy, big grift, and now big government. They are capable of changing federal policy, and are likely to do so again and again in the coming weeks, months, and years as their operators are now atop the US scientific establishment.

How can you spot one?

• They aren’t indexed by Clarivate
  • They generally don’t have ISSNs
    • However, some have DOIs
• They emerged around 2020 or later — Covid-19 seems to have opened these particular floodgates
• They are usually helmed or advised by a known conspiracy theorist — one of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” or a more recent offshoot or copycat
• RFK Jr., or similar anti-vax, anti-science, newly authoritative voices will cite them
• “Biohacking” and bro-culture podcasts will talk about what they publish
• Substacks of known disinformation artists will feature what they publish
• They tend to rely on systematic reviews, meta-analyses, or data dives (death records and VAERS are particularly popular)
• There is more than a whiff of politics or unregulated nutritional/alternative medicine commerce around them or their funders/leaders

The new head of the NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, helped launch one of these “gaslight journals.” It is backed by RealClear Politics. Marty Makary, new head of the FDA, is on the editorial board (currently on leave from the journal). The Editor-in-Chief is a legitimate epidemiologist, but one who has embraced the “lab leak” hypothesis of Covid-19, and who partnered with Bhattacharya and Makary before the journal was launched while at a “lab leak” hypothesis positioning group, Biosafety Now — members of this organization are indifferent to anything after the supposed lab leak, and are fine with mass infection leading to herd immunity. This is one little “gaslight gang.”

Point of emphasis — they boast that they expect to be indexed in all the major services (Scopus, Web of Science), as well as PubMed and PMC. Since Bhattycharya ostensibly controls the last two, that at least seems corrupt but realistic.

• Maybe you should take a second look, Elsevier, Clarivate, and CABI?
  • I’d suggest the same for Google Scholar, but they’re in the bag with the “whatever, more information is better” cyberlibertarians of Silicon Valley.

A larger if not more important “gaslight gang” is led by Peter McCullough, who is currently at the center of a few of these “gaslight journals,” including one (Science, Public Health Policy & the Law) which is actually a WordPress site run by a Covid-19 conspiracist working out of an LLC selling training and concoctions. The LLC is based in PA and MI — one address is a suburban home, the other either dumpster or a garage behind a small house and 7-11. The journal has no DOI, but has created a little code of date identification that looks and is placed like one. McCullough is their Clinical Editor. There are a lot of empty pages and dead-ends.