WTH is wrong w/ John Conyers on health care?

[Bread and Circus]

http://www.freep.com/article/20090305/NEWS15/903050359

Research copyright bill would end free health info

Like many parents of children with a chronic illness, Sally Nantais of Wyandotte invests a lot of time looking into ways to help her 17-year-old son, Austin, battle Fragile X Syndrome.

That hunt often leads her to PubMed Central, a government Web site where everyone has free access to many federally-funded studies.

But a new bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., would make it tough and costly to get to those studies. The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act would reverse a National Institutes of Health policy set last year that held that the public should not have to pay to see the results of medical research funded with taxpayer dollars. The bill would prevent other agencies from making similar rules regarding free public access to published studies.

The bill, still in committee, has patient advocates, scientists, librarians and others up in arms.

"I'm concerned I'm going to lose something very vital to me to help my son," Nantais said.

Others fear that if the bill becomes law, cutting-edge information will stop moving freely among the people who create medical breakthroughs and the people who benefit from them.

The reasoning behind the bill has puzzled observers who note that Conyers is a staunch advocate of universal health care. He has a history of pushing for laws that strengthen copyright protections, too....

....Current law requires scientists to submit NIH-funded work to PubMed Central when it is accepted for publication in a journal. It's free to the public after one year.

The bill would keep studies protected under journals' copyrights, often for decades, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.....


----end snip --- more at link.

I think John Conyers is wrong. The public pays for and volunteers for the vast bulk of our medical research through public universities. The last thing we need is more $$$ being attached to what should be a public good in the first place.

I'm thoroughly shaken w/ Conyers on this. What is he thinking?

[leftchick]

1. it has to be a money issue

even conyers is swayed by lobbyists. This is so bad.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Let's go on the offensive.

In fact, I would love to see the public get free or very cheap access to all scientific journals, many of which are filled with reports of studies that the taxpayers financed.

Traditionally, many journals have very small readerships, and most copies are sold to academic libraries. Those journals are very expensive. I would love to see some way for all of us to get access. Most of the labor in the journals--peer reviews, editing, etc. is done essentially for free, as part of their academic jobs, by university faculty. Only the cost of publishing the journal in hardcopy really needs to be covered by subscription fees. That, and the profits to publishers like Springer Verlag. I think most journals could be put online for open access (a few already are).

[Cerridwen]

3. (edited with updated info.)

I just went to thomas.gov to look at the bill - there's a feedback link to click to give feedback.

I have never seen that before. I'm not sure if it's feedback about the bill or the site. {see edit below} It didn't seem to work with my browser.

I was looking at the "printer friendly" version of the bill.



edit: it's feedback for the site. I guess updates are coming. :D

[mrs_p]

4. i'm in pubmed all the time

as a researcher (pubmed is just a database, really - to find peer-reviewed research and reviews)... pubmed primarily lists journal citations and abstracts. we never have had the option to look at the entire paper, b/c access to articles is journal dependent (and universities have to usually buy subscriptions to each journal). while i don't agree with it, it actually comes down to a publishing issue. that's one reason i always try to submit my articles to journals that have free or wide-academic access.

[kirby]

5. Same bullshit reasoning...

Just like the fact that we cannot access court records or public records because Lexus Nexus gets to 'copyright' the database of all the public information that tax payers paid for.

[madrchsod]

6. conyers has opposed free access for a long time

he has a big problem with people getting free access to public records and file sharing. he`s no friend of open internet access