Jeffrey Young, "HHS Nominee Leavitt Backs NIH Public Access "Principle" At Senate Hearing", Washington Fax, January 21, 2005 (the article is not online). Excerpt: 'HHS Secretary nominee Michael Leavitt assured members of the Senate Finance Committee that he supports the principles guiding the proposed NIH public access policy during his confirmation hearing Jan. 19. Leavitt acknowledged that he "know[s] very little about the specifics of" the public access proposal being finalized by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, MD, but maintained that the outcomes of federally funded research should swiftly be made accessible to the public....Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), citing press reports, remarked that NIH "is going to reduce substantially a proposal to make research that the taxpayers have funded available to the country." He continued, "I would find it helpful if you could just tell us about your commitment to making sure that the public does get access to this information, because these reports from the last couple of days that come from sources within the department [are] pretty troubling."...Leavitt asserted, "I can just tell you in principle that I believe that research [results] that [are] made available by government-funded research ought to add to the knowledge of an informed public generally and ought to be readily and easily available." Wyden pressed Leavitt to support the original NIH plan to require researchers to provide access to their articles within six months of submission to a scientific journal. Under pressure from disease societies and journal publishers, NIH has revised its draft policy to create a 12-month window. (see Washington Fax 1/21/05) "Those publishers fought the department there's no question about that," Wyden commented. Journal publishers-- for-profit and not-for-profit-- have maintained that the original public access plan would threaten their survival. (see Washington Fax 11/22/04) "Let's try to get it down to that short turnaround time the six months because otherwise the taxpayer pays twice," Wyden replied. "The taxpayer pays first when their tax dollars go to research and then they’ve got to shell out more to the scientific publisher."...The Finance Committee and the Senate as a whole are expected overwhelmingly to approve Leavitt's confirmation.' (PS: Kudos to Sen. Ron Wyden for raising this point and pressing it at the confirmation hearings. For non-American readers, Leavitt has been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the cabinet-level department that contains and oversees the NIH.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/21/2005 02:14:00 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.
