The Strange World of "Reward Deficiency Syndrome" (Part 1)

Yesterday a new scientific journal appeared on PubMed, the standard index of the biomedical literature. That journal is called the Journal of Reward Deficiency Syndrome (JRDS). The first issue is here, indexed on PubMed here. (EDIT: It seems the journal is not exactly indexed on PubMed, although the papers appear there. See end of post.) I spotted JRDS yesterday. I soon noticed a few strange things about it. First off, almost every single paper in the first issue of JRDS is authored by neuroscientist Kenneth Blum, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. He's first author on an introductory Editorial, which makes sense, but he's also lead author of a Hypothesis, an Expert Opinion, something called a Clinical Pearl and strangest of all, a Letter to the Editor (himself). Blum is also second author of a Case Series and an Original Research. The only pieces in the first issue that he didn't ...