> To make matters worse, my Pokémon-inspired paper on the novel coronavirus has already been cited. A physicist based in Tunisia published “The COVID-19 outbreak’s multiple effects,” which claimed that COVID-19 was human-made and is treatable with “provincial herbs,” in another predatory journal, The International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology. He not only cited my article, but also cited one of my made-up references, “Signs and symptoms of Pokérus infection,” as the paper that first identified SARS-CoV-2.
> When I asked the author how this happened, he failed to see any problem with citing a paper he never read while writing a paper outside his field, and was unaware of the difference between open access and predatory journals.
