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excerpt pdf file:"In December 2011 the United States House of Representatives introduced a new bill, the Research Works Act (H.R.3699), which if passed could threaten the public’s access to US government funded
research. In a digital age when professional and lay parties alike look more and more to the online environment to keep up to date with developments in their fields, does this bill serve the best
interests of the community? Those in support of the Research Works Act argue that government open access mandates undermine peer-review and take intellectual property from publishers without compensation, however journals like Journal of Translational Medicine show that this is not the case. Journal of Translational Medicine in affiliation with the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer demonstrates how private and public organisations can work together for the advancement
of science.
Editorial
Journal of Tra nslational Medicine is an open access journal published by BioMed Central that aims to optimise communication between basic and clinical science. Now in its 10th year of publication
the journal is successful in its aim for fostering communication from bench to bedside.
A new bill, the Research Works Act[1], has been introduced in the United States House of Representatives threatening the public’s access to US government funded research and the foundation on which Journal of Translational Medicine was built.
The bill states:
“No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that:
(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.”
If passed, this bill would force the retraction of the public access policy of the National Institutes of Health[2], who mandate that recipients of their grants must make their published research publically accessible by depositing full-text versions in open access repositories (such as PubMed Central), and prevent similar policies from being introduced by federal agencies in the future.
It is argued [3, 4] that research funded by tax-payers should be made available to the public free of charge so that the tax-payer does not in effect pay twice for the research - first for the research to be done and then to read the results. As much as this may be true, the biggest detriment seems to be to developments in science. Open access to research means the widest possible dissemination of information. Limiting access to a (by comparison) small subset of people with subscriptions can stunt further developments......"
