polydipsia.com

I received this email today. I think it’s particularly disturbing because it’s so reminiscent of early internet SPAMMING. And while I would truly love to visit my childhood home of Nurnberg, I wouldn’t go on behalf of these folks. I did change my name and the “substance” to protect my innocence, but this is a crock of shit! All they’re doing is google’ing pubmed for a list of antibiotic names and author emails. My paper has nothing to do with micobicide!!!
The unfortunate thing about this kind of behavior is that it will discourage scientists from including their email addresses in manuscripts, which they have traditionally done. This encouraged the open, free exchange of ideas and data. The people that sent this email are making science more difficult rather than less difficult and should be ashamed of their behavior. While they are not the first to do this (upstart journals are the worst - I get 2-3 of those solicitations per week) this is one of the worst examples of this behavior.

Prof. Fritz Sorgel should be very, very ashamed. I think Paul Ehrlich would be ashamed that he’s being whored like this.

From: “Prof. Dr. Fritz Sorgel” <antibiotics>
Subject: INVITATION to present at EHRLICH II, 2nd World Conference on Magic Bullets, Oct 3-5, 2008 Nurnberg, Germany

Dear Dr. FLATUS,

This is to invite you as a renowned investigator in the field of
antibiotics to present at a very special and prestigious conference that
is organized on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Nobel Prize
awarded to Paul Ehrlich, www.ehrlich-2008.org . The conference follows a
most successful global EHRLICH conference in 2004, when Ehrlich’s 150th
birthday was celebrated by almost 2000 participants from 84 countries.
At EHRLICH I www.ehrlich2004.org MAGIC BULLETS from the antibiotic
field were already the major topic and it will become an even bigger
one during Ehrlich II. Paul Ehrlich coined the term “MAGIC BULLETS”
and presented his ideas about antibiotic chemotherapy at his
visionary Nobel talk 100 years ago.

This conference aims at reviewing our knowledge on antibiotics that
deserve or failed to receive the designation “MAGIC BULLET” and at
discussing the reasons. We found that you made significant
contributions to the important compound :

india pale ale.

We would therefore be delighted if you decided to present at this historic
and prestigious meeting. Your talk may present new data or put previous
data into perspective. Thus, an earlier journal publication does not
prohibit presenting this material due to the scope of this conference
to determine what makes a “MAGIC BULLET”. Your contribution will
automatically participate in the competition of the prestigious
“Magic-Bullet-Award”,

To SUPPORT your conference participation, we make a special offer to cover
some of your costs (please see below). To apply for this offer, please
submit your tentative presentation title by July 4th, 2008 to:
antibiotics
You can use the reply button.

NOTE: We ONLY need the title, authors and affiliation(s) by July 4th, 2008.

blahblahblahblah… it goes on and on….