The "Publish. Cite. Reward." scheme of a biosciences company irks academia

"Cite us in your publication and earn $100 or more based on your journal's impact factor!"

This was the subject of the e-mail many academics received in the past week from Cyagen Biosciences Inc., a California-based contract research organization and cell culture product manufacturer that provides transgenetic animal models and other services to life-science researchers. The company is seemingly offering vouchers to Cyagen products for citing them in published papers. Cyagen’s open offer to medical researchers grabbed the eyeballs of academia and led to sharp reactions from the science community.

Apparently, Cyagen has been offering the payola scheme to researchers since June, which simply states “PCR just got a new meaning. Publish. Cite. Reward.” on Cyagen’s website. Moreover, the site also lists 164 papers that have cited the company. Ben Goldacre, a well-known science blogger, argues on his blog that the company’s offer introduces “unambiguous financial conflict of interest” and is something journal editors should look closely into. According to him, "If someone receives money from [a company] and their publication discusses that company’s products, then this needs to be declared in the paper."

On the other hand, some researchers think that the offer is not unscrupulous, which includes two authors of the 164 papers that have cited Cyagen: Vincent Christoffels and Neil Shubbin. Christoffels, a developmental biologist at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, does not find Cyagen’s scheme odd. He reasons, "In my opinion this is not different from any other discount you often get when buying lab equipment, antibodies, transgenic services etc. Just makes science a little less expensive.” Shubbin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, says he did not declare any conflict of interest for citing Cyagen because “We didn't get the discount for the work of the paper...so I don't see the need to either acknowledge it or list it as a COI. We listed it in methods in a level of detail where others could repeat our efforts.”

Meanwhile, a Cyagen spokesperson, Austin Jelcick, told Science that the company is offering store credit, not cash. He added that the ‘citation’ the company is asking for is a mere mention in the Methods section of a paper if Cyagen’s animal models were actually used, which usually needs to be mentioned in order for others to be able to reproduce the experiment. “So, in essence, the company was rewarding researchers for something they already do,” he rationalizes.  

Goldacre makes a strong statement when he says, “Cyagen, here, are offering a financial incentive to say something in an academic paper. I don’t think it is the worst thing in the world, but I do think it should be declared, because that’s what we do. Exceptions to the ‘declare when you’ve been paid money to say stuff’ rule are not a good idea.”

Cyagen’s payola scheme has evoked varying reactions among academics: some find it condemnable, some do not deny its benefits, and some others opine that it does not affect research and are thus indifferent to it. What is your opinion on this issue? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.