Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to share a recent, concerning experience with Annals of Case Studies, published by Gavin Publisher, to warn others about their predatory practices.

As an experiment to illustrate the lack of rigorous peer review at some journals, I submitted a deliberately fabricated and satirical research letter titled "Olfactory Impact of Diet-Modulated Anthropogenic Flatus: A Case-Control Study of Bystander Somatic Responses in Confined Environments".

The paper discussed, in a mock-serious tone, the fictitious health effects of diet-modulated flatulence odors on bystanders – a topic designed to be patently absurd yet presented in a standard scientific format.

To my (lack of) surprise, but confirming the hypothesis, Annals of Case Studies accepted this manuscript for publication within 45 minutes of emailing it to them. Their acceptance email indicated zero substantive peer review feedback that would have identified the work as satirical or fundamentally flawed. I wrote about this experience in my weekly Substack Newsletter, Double Check Doc (https://drlutz.substack.com/p/seriously-i-submitted-a-fake-fart?r=2gzg4a). There you can see screenshots of the email correspondence.

Following acceptance, I received an invoice demanding a publication fee of $3799 USD. This exorbitant fee was never disclosed prior to submission or during the review process. Furthermore, Gavin Publisher falsely advertises an Impact Factor of 4.99 for this journal in their initial email; however, the journal has no official Impact Factor and is not indexed in major databases like NLM/PubMed.

When I refused to pay this hidden fee and explicitly requested that the manuscript not be published, the journal insisted that the publication process is "irreversible" and implied I am obligated to pay.

This entire episode clearly demonstrates predatory behaviour:

• Acceptance of nonsensical, satirical work, indicating failed or non-existent peer review.
• Lack of transparency regarding exorbitant publication fees (hidden costs).
• False advertising of credentials (Impact Factor).
• Coercive tactics to extract payment after acceptance.

I refused payment and am taking steps to make this situation public. I urge colleagues to be extremely cautious when dealing with Annals of Case Studies or any journal from Gavin Publisher. Their practices undermine scientific integrity and exploit researchers.

I am happy to share the submitted manuscript and correspondence with interested colleagues as evidence. Let's continue to expose and boycott such predatory entities.

Sincerely,

Lutz E. Kraushaar