Yesterday Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) and Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH) engaged in a colloquy about the House Appropriations Committee report language proposing the NIH open-access plan (Congressional Record, September 8, p. H6833). For this purpose a "colloquy" is a scripted dialog for entering additional language into the record. A colloquy provides legislative history but does not amend a bill. Both Istook and Regula are members of the House subcommittee that originally proposed the plan.
Mr. ISTOOK....Mr. Chairman, the committee report on the Labor-HHS bill includes language that encourages the National Institutes of Health to adopt a policy that would make available to the public without charge the scientific journal articles that report the results of research that has been supported with NIH funding. As you know, Mr. Chairman, I have been very concerned for a number of years that the public is not always able to access the results of that research, federally funded research, unless they had a university library nearby or could pay often very large subscription fees of the journals, costs that are beyond most families' budgets.
The NIH, in response to language in the bill, has acted quickly to respond to our guidance. It posted the draft policy last Friday, September 3. Dr. Zerhouni, the Director of NIH, took care to seek comment from the various stakeholders involved in the issue, seeking comment from publishers, for-profit and nonprofit groups, from scientists, and from advocates for curing different diseases; and he has held three public meetings. Dr. Zerhouni heard some powerful stories from patients and family members who were struggling to learn as much as they could about treatment for serious diseases that affect them and their loved ones and had previously been unable to access some of the key information that could help them.
Dr. Zerhouni has produced a draft proposal from NIH that carefully balances the interests of these groups; and, most importantly, Mr. Chairman, it moves NIH in the direction of making more research available to the people who financed it, namely, the American taxpayers.
Mr. Chairman, I see the action by the NIH to date as being consistent with the language in our bill, and I would appreciate the chairman's thoughts on this.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I have been very pleased to see that NIH has responded so quickly and thoughtfully to the House report language. I think it is a very simple proposition: NIH, or the taxpayer, pays for the research, even pays for the journals, and should be able to share the results with the taxpaying public . Our investment in research is not well served by a process that limits taxpayer access instead of expanding it, and I should add public access.
I encourage NIH to move expeditiously to finalize its proposal after considering the comments it receives on its policy. The public deserves nothing less.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/09/2004 01:30:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
