Mr Banks, please don't patronise me. I wasn't referring to patient education
but to your failure to use statistics. From your reply, it is clear I know
a lot more about the use of statistics than you do. Just be honest and say
what you really think - that OA may well damage the profitability of journal
publishers.
Professor Charles Oppenheim
Head
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU
Tel 01509-223065
Fax 01509-223053
e mail C.Oppenheim_at_lboro.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Banks" <pbanks_at_BANKSPUB.COM>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 10:03 PM
Subject: Re: PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access: excerpts from article
in Nature Magazine
Mr. Banks has not interviewed homemakers in Houston. Instead, I spent 20
years in patient education. I've looked at the statistics that show 90
million Americans have limited health literacy. I've considered the 40
million Hispanic patients for whom English is often a second language. I
have considered the fact that 47 million Americans have no health insurance
and therefore no opportunity to discuss health information with a physician.
I have created low-literacy health publications, Spanish language
publications.
I have also been a cancer patient and used the Internet. In the search for
information, NIH's MedLine Plus, the American Cancer's Society page, and
many other patient-oriented pages were extremely useful. PubMed Central was
largely useless, since I do not happen to be a cultured cell or a rat.
At the same time, I made virtually all the content of the journal Diabetes
Care freely available (after a 3-month delay). I did this not because it
would help very many patients--from usage statistics, it very clearly
didn't--but not to inhibit those few who might use the information
productively.
What I didn't do is to adopt the reprehensible tactic of some OA advocates
or Sen. Cornyn and suggest that a treatment for breast cancer or diabetes
was locked behind subscriptions barriers. OA maybe a good idea on some
grounds, but patient education is not one of them.
Please don't presume to lecture me about patient education and empowerment,
a subject about which you appear to know nothing.
Peter Banks
On 1/29/07 11:31 AM, "C.Oppenheim" <C.Oppenheim_at_LBORO.AC.UK> wrote:
> Has Mr Banks done a survey of homemarkers in Hiouston to assess their
> desire to read medical journals? If yes, can we see the methods and
> results
> please? If not, his posting will be rightly ignored.
>
>
> Professor Charles Oppenheim
> Head
> Department of Information Science
> Loughborough University
> Loughborough
> Leics LE11 3TU
>
> Tel 01509-223065
> Fax 01509-223053
> e mail C.Oppenheim_at_lboro.ac.uk
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter Banks" <pbanks_at_BANKSPUB.COM>
> To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 2:30 PM
> Subject: Re: e: PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access: excerpts from
> article
> in Nature Magazine
>
>
> The reason to focus so much on large medical journals is that, at least in
> the United States, policy policy debate regarding scholarly publishing is
> almost entirely focused on clinical medicine--and on rather ignorant
> misconceptions of how OA can serve the general public.
>
> Exhibit A among the Legislators-Gone-Batty is Sen.John Cornyn: who claimed
> this in introducing the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006
> (S.2695):
>
> ³Sall Americans will be positively affected as a result of this bill:
> Patients diagnosed with a disease or condition will be able to use the
> Internet to access the full text of articles containing the latest
> information on treatment and prognosisS The Internet gives the homemaker
> in
> Houston the ability to find volumes of information about a recent medical
> diagnosis given to a family member.²
>
> I have no met a homemaker in Houston who cares to read the American
> Journal
> of Physiology, no offense to that fine journal.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 1/29/07 3:26 AM, "C.Oppenheim" <C.Oppenheim_at_LBORO.AC.UK> wrote:
>
>> Peter Banks wrote:
>>
>> You, like so many in the OA community, are looking at small journals in
>> basic or social science and assuming that the funding is the the same for
>> medical journals (which are the center of public policy debate).
>> Enlightened
>> debate on this topic demands that we not start with false assumptions.
>>
>> To which the obvious reply is:
>>
>> You, like so many in the anti-OA community, are looking at a very small
>> number of large journals rather than the small journals that provide the
>> vast bulk of scholarly information.
>>
>> Charles
>>
>> Professor Charles Oppenheim
>> Head
>> Department of Information Science
>> Loughborough University
>> Loughborough
>> Leics LE11 3TU
>>
>> Tel 01509-223065
>> Fax 01509-223053
>> e mail C.Oppenheim_at_lboro.ac.uk
>>
>
> Peter Banks
> Banks Publishing
> Publications Consulting and Services
> 10332 Main Street #158
> Fairfax, VA 22030
> (703) 591-6544
> CELL (703) 254-8862
> FAX (703) 383-0765
> pbanks_at_bankspub.com
> www.bankspub.com
> www.associationpublisher.com/blog/
>
Peter Banks
Banks Publishing
Publications Consulting and Services
10332 Main Street #158
Fairfax, VA 22030
(703) 591-6544
CELL (703) 254-8862
FAX (703) 383-0765
pbanks_at_bankspub.com
www.bankspub.com
www.associationpublisher.com/blog/
Received on Tue Jan 30 2007 - 12:54:21 GMT