RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Publication by association: how the COVID-19 pandemic has shown relationships between authors and editorial board members in the field of infectious diseases JF BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine JO BMJ EBM FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd SP 133 OP 136 DO 10.1136/bmjebm-2021-111670 VO 27 IS 3 A1 Clara Locher A1 David Moher A1 Ioana Alina Cristea A1 Florian Naudet YR 2022 UL http://ebm.bmj.com/content/27/3/133.abstract AB During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rush to scientific and political judgements on the merits of hydroxychloroquine was fuelled by dubious papers which may have been published because the authors were not independent from the practices of the journals in which they appeared. This example leads us to consider a new type of illegitimate publishing entity, ‘self-promotion journals’ which could be deployed to serve the instrumentalisation of productivity-based metrics, with a ripple effect on decisions about promotion, tenure and grant funding, but also on the quality of manuscripts that are disseminated to the medical community and form the foundation of evidence-based medicine.