It's odious and despicable to dumb society down by blocking access to science for the sake of politics.

By the way -- a big scientific review by the Institute of Medicine just concluded that not a single one of the FDA-approved treatments for PTSD actually works.

There is a lot of science being done now that points to an effective treatment for PTSD that Vietnam veterans have sworn by and the VA knows they've sworn by for years.

Think you'll ever see it mentioned here? Ha ha ha.

...but why do we need a law that would allow taxpayers to have access to the research that they funded? Shouldn't it be a given?

we may want to remember that just because NIH has funded research, that doesn't mean it funds the publication of the research. The publisher holds the copyright, and could lose money if it effectively yields that copyright to NIH. Worse, publishers might be less willing to publish NIH research if they know they will lose money on it.

Generally, academic publishers don't make money on publishing research---they lose money, for this reason and seek to recover costs where they can. They don't stand to lose much by this, but there's no question they will lose something.

Personally, I think NIH should publish its own research for free. That way, there is no question as to who owns it: No one. Government publications lack all copyright.

It seems whatever this administration can label classified information, is being so designated. A few years ago, documents which were already UNCLASSIFIED were reclassified. An example of this is Watergate era recordings and papers. Why does what happened in 1972 need to be classified now? Does someone who used to work in the higher echelons of government 30 years ago, as the author implies about Inhofe, have something to hide?

If these silly people have their way, an innocuous monograph regarding El Nino and its effect on avian migration will be classified.

James Inhofe is one of those politicians who's a great barometer for legislative villainy -- if he supports something, you just know it's bad for the public; and if he opposes it, you know it's a public good. Maybe he's just extending the GOP creed of privatization to open access.

When Inhofe was a congressman, he got props for publicizing things "liberals" wanted to keep hidden. Now he is hiding things "liberals" want to publicize. No one who knows anything at all about him is surprised.

scientific researchers want their publications to be read by as many people as possible, given that their promotions are often tied to how many times they're cited. A good deal of the resistance to open access publishing is from the publishers themselves, who charge huge fees for institutional subscriptions. I'd look into who's been lobbying Inhofe from the publishing industry.

scientific researchers want their publications to be read by as many people as possible, given that their promotions are often tied to how many times they're cited. A good deal of the resistance to open access publishing is from the publishers themselves, who charge huge fees for institutional subscriptions. I'd look into who's been lobbying Inhofe from the publishing industry.

First, what researchers want is for their work to be published by a prestigious journal so that people in their field will read and recognize it, and it may even get into the MSM. Prestige is measured by impact factor, which is calculated from citation data. That doesn't mean "promotions are often tied to how many times they're cited." It means that some journals have built up brand recognition, by setting and maintaining high standards, over decades, and the rest are trying to imitate them as best they can.

Second, what's wrong with the people who produce a product charging for it? Hint: Those aren't "fees." They are "subscriptions." And yes, they are large. That's because everyone at an institution---say, all the students at a university---has access to that subscription.

Finally, do you really think the publishing industry has the money to "lobby"? Are you retarded? I'm serious. I'll cut you some slack if you present evidence of mental impairment.

Face it, your hate model doesn't work here. Go play somewhere else.

you were making a reasonable contribution here until you started asking questions like "are you retarded?" that's an unacceptable level of discourse in my view, and I won't hesitate to unpublish your comments if it keeps up.

and for what it's worth, the AAP definitely has money to lobby, or they wouldn't have been able to hire Eric Dezenhall to help them craft their absurd PRISM campaign.

I hear you. Although my question was intended as a politeness. Truly stupid people get the treatment they deserve, but sometimes there are excuses.

However, I'd maintain that anyone who considers the publishing industry to have serious lobbying capacity needs to recheck his facts.

Apparently, Elsevier has enough money to lobby:

http://www.contentmatters.info/content_matters/2007/09/reed-elsevier-l.html

There is a tremendous amount of money made by the largest medical publishers, and they make this money by selling the findings of research that WE pay for with our tax dollars.

I don't know about medical research, but in some scientific fields (including atmospheric science which is the field I work in), the authors (hence the federal government who is funding the work) actually pay for their article to be published in many of the leading journals. These articles still go through scholarly peer review - it is not a vanity press, but the page charges reduce the overall cost of publication of the journal. However, these types of journals are generally run by scientific organizations (such as the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union) rather than by publishing companies.

Historically, many scientific promotions (and hirings)have been tied to the number of publications. Needless to say that has led to what we might call publication inflation, and so some institutions are starting to look at number of citations and number of publications in "high-impact" journals to get a better idea of the quality of the publications. However, I would say that it is only a few institutions at this point which directly consider citations and impact factor in promotions or hiring decisions.