Hyderabad, India-based open-access publisher OMICS International is on a buying spree, snatching up legitimate scholarly journals and publishers, incorporating them into its mega-fleet of bogus, exploitative, and low-quality publications.

Sources indicate that OMICS has purchased the publisher Pulsus Group. In February, 2016, I reported on some strange activity surrounding the Canadian publisher Andrew John Publishing. Now is becoming clear that OMICS purchased Andrew John and is using it as a Canadian ‘base’ of sorts to purchase other Canadian journals, especially society journals.

The Pulsus Group website bears a London, UK address. Pulsus has published about two-dozen Canadian medical society journals, including these titles:

Canadian Hearing Report

Canadian Journal of Pathology

Canadian Journal of General Internal Medicine

Canadian Journal of Educators of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Canadian Journal of Restorative Dentistry and Prosthodontics

The medical societies had contracted with Pulsus to manage the publishing of their journals for them, a common practice. Now there is panic among the staff and editors of many Canadian medical journals as they learn that OMICS International has purchased Pulsus.

OMICS International is not a bona fide scholarly publisher. It does not operate in good faith and victimizes honest researchers.

OMICS International is a major source of annoying spam and a threat to science. It is a predatory publisher and is included on my list. I have also added Pulsus to my list.

In addition, OMICS has set up a new publisher — called Open Access Journals — and is transferring some of its recently-acquired journals there.

OMICS’ new imprint Open Access Journals claims on its “contact us” page that it belongs to Pulsus and also shows a base in London, UK.

One of the journals in the fleet of OMICS’ Open Access Journals imprint is Neuropsychiatry. The journal has a legitimate impact factor and is included in the top academic indexes. The former publisher of this journal is Future Medicine. In fact, most of the Open Access Journals journals appear to have been purchased from Future Medicine.

A note on Future Medicine’s website says:

OMICS International is on a mission to take over all of scholarly publishing. It is purchasing journals and publishers and incorporating them into its evil empire. Its strategy is to saturate scholarly publishing with its low-quality and poorly-managed journals, aiming to squeeze out and acquire legitimate publishers.

Appendix

A. List of Pulsus journals as of 2016-09-23 (copied from the website)

Allied Hearing Health Canadian Hearing Report Canadian Hearing Report enews Canadian IONM News Canadian Journal of Educators of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Canadian Journal of General Internal Medicine Canadian Journal of Medical of Sonography Canadian Journal of Pathology Canadian Journal of Respiratory Therapy Canadian Journal of Restorative Dentistry and Prosthodontics CASLPO Today Clinical Investigation Clinical Practice (Therapy) Current Research: Cardiology Current Research: Integrative Medicine Diabetes Management Imaging in Medicine International Journal of Clinical Rheumatology International Journal of Clinical Skills Interventional Cardiology Journal of Men’s Health Journal of Sexual & Reproductive Medicine Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada Listen/Écoute

Neuropsy Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing Plastic Surgery Plastic Surgery: Case Studies Signal Sound Matters Vascular Access Vibes Wavelength

List of Pulsus journals as of 2016-09-28 (copied from the website)

Plastic Surgery (Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, Canadian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Groupe pour l’Avancementde la Microchirurgie Canada, Canadian Society for Surgery of the Hand) Plastic Surgery: Case Studies (Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, Canadian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Groupe pour l’Avancement de la Microchirurgie Canada, Canadian Society for Surgery of the Hand) Canadian Journal of Respiratory Therapy (Canadian Society of Respiratory Therapists) Current Research: Cardiology (International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences) Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada (Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (AMMI) Canada) Canadian Journal of Medical of Sonography (Sonography Canada) Canadian IONM News (Canadian Association of Neurophysiological Monitoring (CANM)) Current Research: Integrative Medicine Journal of Sexual & Reproductive Medicine Diabetes Management Interventional Cardiology Clinical Practice (Therapy) Clinical Investigation International Journal of Clinical Rheumatology Imaging in Medicine Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing Neuropsychiatry International Journal of Clinical Skills Canadian Hearing Report

B. List of Open Access Journals journals as of 2016-09-23: