Christopher Rowland, The Washington Post; Trump administration sues drugmaker Gilead Sciences over patent on Truvada for HIV prevention
"The Trump administration took the rare step Wednesday of filing a patent
infringement lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturer Gilead
Sciences over sales of Truvada for HIV prevention, a crucial therapy
invented and patented by Centers for Disease Control researchers."
Showing posts with label taxpayer-funded research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taxpayer-funded research. Show all posts
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
UC open access fight exposes publishing rip-off: Charging exorbitant fees for journal articles isn’t in the best interests of scientific research, Mercury News, March 6, 2019
MERCURY NEWS & EAST BAY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARDS; Editorial: UC open access fight exposes publishing rip-off
Charging exorbitant fees for journal articles isn’t in the best interests of scientific research
"The scholarly research publishing industry is a rip-off that hinders scientific advances and piles unnecessary costs onto taxpayers who already fund much of the academic work.
It’s ridiculous that, in this age of the internet, researchers are paying huge fees for access to academic papers and for publication of their own work. That made sense in the days when scholarly works were printed in bound volumes. Today, academic work, especially public- and foundation-funded research, should be open for all. It shouldn’t cost $35 to $40 for each article, effectively freezing out those without the means to pay...
The University of California’s mission statement reads: “The distinctive mission of the university is to serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge.”
UC’s commitment to open access helps fulfill that goal and advances scientific enterprise for the benefit of all."
Monday, August 27, 2018
Who Gets to Read the Research We Pay For?; Slate, August 21, 2018
Aaron Mak, Slate; Who Gets to Read the Research We Pay For?: Scientific journals’ lock on new studies has ignited tension for years. When it comes to access for people with rare diseases, it becomes an ethical issue too.
This is just one reckless tweet in the heat of a Twitter spat (though it’s worth bearing Gunn’s job title in mind), and, sure, he later apologized. But the issue of rare-disease families trying to avoid the high fees associated with accessing research on potential treatments goes beyond this Twitter spat: It’s a real problem that has not been adequately fixed by the company."
"This does not sit well with academics and other members of the
research community, who often publicly complain about the company’s
profit margins, its allegedly restrictive copyrights, and the fact that
much of the research it sells access to is taxpayer-funded. This public
outrage seems to have gotten under the skin of William Gunn, Elsevier’s
director of scholarly communications. When one user argued that people
in rare-disease families “shouldn’t have to jump through additional
hoops to access information,” Gunn responded,
“Yes, everyone should have rainbows, unicorns, & puppies delivered
to their doorstep by volunteers. Y’all keep wishing for that, I’ll keep
working on producing the best knowledge and distributing it as best we
can.”
This is just one reckless tweet in the heat of a Twitter spat (though it’s worth bearing Gunn’s job title in mind), and, sure, he later apologized. But the issue of rare-disease families trying to avoid the high fees associated with accessing research on potential treatments goes beyond this Twitter spat: It’s a real problem that has not been adequately fixed by the company."
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Soon, nobody will read academic journals illegally, because the studies worth reading will be free; Quartz, August 9, 2017
Akshat Rathi, Quartz; Soon, nobody will read academic journals illegally, because the studies worth reading will be free
"Now a new study has found that nearly half of all academic articles that users want to read are already freely available. These studies may or may not have been published in an open-access journal, but there is a legally free version available for a reader to download...
The finding is backed by two trends. First, academics are increasingly publishing in open-access journals. Looking at a random sample of studies published in 2015, about 45% were published in such journals. Second, studies published in open-access journals receive more citations than average. It’s not clear whether that’s to do with the quality of research or easy access, but it’s a positive sign for a more open-accessed internet."
"Now a new study has found that nearly half of all academic articles that users want to read are already freely available. These studies may or may not have been published in an open-access journal, but there is a legally free version available for a reader to download...
The finding is backed by two trends. First, academics are increasingly publishing in open-access journals. Looking at a random sample of studies published in 2015, about 45% were published in such journals. Second, studies published in open-access journals receive more citations than average. It’s not clear whether that’s to do with the quality of research or easy access, but it’s a positive sign for a more open-accessed internet."
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
US government looks to expand scientific open access policy; Ars Technica, 12/14/09
John Timmer, Ars Technica; US government looks to expand scientific open access policy:
The US government's Office of Science and Technology Policy is hosting a forum for debating an expansion of an open access policy, used by the National Institute of Health, that guarantees all publications derived from the agency's funding are available to the public within one year.
"Last Thursday, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy launched a public forum to allow the public to provide feedback into a potential expansion of the US government's open access policy for scientific research. Right now, the National Institutes of Health is the only agency that requires recipients of its funding to make any scientific papers available to the public within a year of the publication date. For the next month, the OSTP will be soliciting feedback on whether and how the policy should be extended to other federal agencies...
One problem with the documents at the website is that they don't make a clear distinction between the publications that are based on research funded by federal agencies and the data behind the research itself. A more informative description of the different materials can be found in the Federal Register, which published the official request for input...
So, for the moment at least, the OSTP is focusing strictly on publications, and not on providing access to the raw data produced during the course of these studies (although that may be subject to separate disclosure policies, depending on the agency and material). It's a rather significant distinction to make, given the recent controversy over the availability of climate data that was used to produce several peer-reviewed studies.
In any case, the actual format of the material may ultimately be just as important as which agencies are included. The ability to ingest data from these publications and make it accessible to text mining and meta-analysis that crosses disciplines has the potential to open new avenues for research and provide a higher scientific return on the public's investment."
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/12/us-government-looks-to-expand-scientific-open-access-policy.ars
The US government's Office of Science and Technology Policy is hosting a forum for debating an expansion of an open access policy, used by the National Institute of Health, that guarantees all publications derived from the agency's funding are available to the public within one year.
"Last Thursday, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy launched a public forum to allow the public to provide feedback into a potential expansion of the US government's open access policy for scientific research. Right now, the National Institutes of Health is the only agency that requires recipients of its funding to make any scientific papers available to the public within a year of the publication date. For the next month, the OSTP will be soliciting feedback on whether and how the policy should be extended to other federal agencies...
One problem with the documents at the website is that they don't make a clear distinction between the publications that are based on research funded by federal agencies and the data behind the research itself. A more informative description of the different materials can be found in the Federal Register, which published the official request for input...
So, for the moment at least, the OSTP is focusing strictly on publications, and not on providing access to the raw data produced during the course of these studies (although that may be subject to separate disclosure policies, depending on the agency and material). It's a rather significant distinction to make, given the recent controversy over the availability of climate data that was used to produce several peer-reviewed studies.
In any case, the actual format of the material may ultimately be just as important as which agencies are included. The ability to ingest data from these publications and make it accessible to text mining and meta-analysis that crosses disciplines has the potential to open new avenues for research and provide a higher scientific return on the public's investment."
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/12/us-government-looks-to-expand-scientific-open-access-policy.ars
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