{"id":26342,"date":"2026-04-29T17:39:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T15:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/?p=26342"},"modified":"2026-04-30T09:14:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T07:14:54","slug":"the-padua-pipeline-how-a-sanctioned-iranian-university-publishes-clinical-data-in-an-off-topic-italian-open-access-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2026\/04\/the-padua-pipeline-how-a-sanctioned-iranian-university-publishes-clinical-data-in-an-off-topic-italian-open-access-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Padua pipeline – how a sanctioned Iranian university publishes clinical data in an off topic Italian open access journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently came across the European Journal of Translational Myology<\/a> publishing strange papers outside the scope of the journal and outside the expertise of the editorial board.<\/p>\n

Editor-in-Chief Ugo Carraro<\/a> (*1943, former University of Padua researcher) supported EJTM’s<\/a> broadening from muscle physiology into general medicine, proposing a rename to “Myology, Mobility, Medicine”<\/a>. The journal subsequently started to publish Iranian clinical papers across orthopedics, dentistry, psychiatry, COVID-19, and urology – not related to myology. In 2022, an Iranian author even published in EJTM a bibliometric study of Iranian output in EJTM itself<\/a> –\u00a0 a self-referential feedback loop that normalizes the journal as a legitimate Iranian venue inviting further submissions.<\/p>\n

The Cegolon bridge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luca Cegolon<\/a> (University of Trieste) is the structural intermediary between Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences (BMSU) and Italian academia. He holds at least six joint publications with Einollahi and Javanbakht spanning COVID-19, plasma exchange, ozone therapy, and kidney injury \u2014 all on Iranian data. Cegolon completed his PhD at Padua University Medical School \u2014 the same institution as Carraro. The Tehran\u2013Trieste\u2013Padua route therefore carries manuscripts from a sanctioned IRGC institution to a Pavia open-access publisher with no regulatory friction: multiple BMSU researchers (Tehran) \u2192 Cegolon\/Carraro (Trieste\/Padua) \u2192 PAGEPress (Pavia).<\/p>\n

Javanbakht as serial off-topic submitter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Javanbakht’s EJTM papers cover\u00a0kidney transplantation pharmacology (Suprotac tacrolimus)<\/a>,\u00a0male fertility \/ varicocelectomy<\/a>, and wrist tendon transfer surgery<\/a> – none touching myology. The pattern is deliberate: EJTM is Scopus-indexed, open-access<\/a>\u00a0and has demonstrated tolerance for off-topic Iranian clinical submissions. The Suprotac APC was almost certainly paid by NanoAlvand Company, the product’s manufacturer \u2014 a private firm with foreign-currency access that university researchers lack, paying a trivially small marketing cost for a PubMed-citable Phase IV label.<\/p>\n

The sanctions geography<\/strong><\/p>\n

From March 2013,\u00a0OFAC regulations<\/a> prohibited US-owned journals from handling manuscripts\u00a0authored by Iranian government employees.\u00a0Elsevier instructed its US editors<\/a> to reject such manuscripts outright.\u00a0OFAC sanctions also generated misunderstanding among editors in other countries, who rejected Iranian manuscripts for political rather than scientific reasons, further narrowing the accessible publishing landscape.<\/p>\n

Fortunately PAGEPress has no US ownership and no OFAC exposure. It accepts APC payments via Italian bank transfer (Banca Popolare di Sondrio<\/a>), routable through European exchange offices without triggering US sanctions. It fills a structural niche created by the sanctions geography.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0(BMSU) was founded in 1994 as the primary medical institution operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC. The US Treasury designated it on under Executive Order 13382<\/a> (WMD proliferation) and again in 2017 under Executive Order 13224<\/a> (terrorism support). Foreign parties facilitating transactions for the entity are subject to US sanctions. Einollahi, Javanbakht, and their BMSU co-authors are employees of this designated institution.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

The primary exchange is probably not financial but metric. For Cegolon, co-authorship with a high-volume Iranian clinical group accelerates publication output at a career stage where Italian Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale<\/em> metrics directly determine promotion. For BMSU and NanoAlvand, the European co-author provides editorial access, institutional legitimacy, and a sanctions-circumventing pathway to Scopus. The \u20ac600 APC is the transaction cost; mutual bibliometric benefit is the structural incentive \u2014 legal, common, and largely misaligned with quality control<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

\n CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 01.05.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently came across the European Journal of Translational Myology publishing strange papers outside the scope of the journal and outside the expertise of the editorial board. Editor-in-Chief Ugo Carraro (*1943, former University of Padua researcher) supported EJTM’s broadening from muscle physiology into general medicine, proposing a rename to “Myology, Mobility, Medicine”. The journal subsequently … Continue reading The Padua pipeline – how a sanctioned Iranian university publishes clinical data in an off topic Italian open access journal<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-note-worthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26342"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26366,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26342\/revisions\/26366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}