Open Letter to the U.S. Congress from 26 Nobel Laureates (fwd)

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:34:15 +0100

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:28:59 -0400
From: Peter Suber peters--earlham.edu
To: SPARC Open Access Forum SPARC-OAForum--arl.org
Subject: [SOAF] Open Letter to the U.S. Congress from 26 Nobel Laureates

An Open Letter to the U.S. Congress
Signed by 26 Nobel Prize Winners

July 8, 2007

Dear Members of Congress:

As scientists and Nobel laureates, we are writing
to express our strong support for the House and
Senate Appropriations Committees^Ò recent
directives to the NIH to enact a mandatory policy
that allows public access to published reports of
work supported by the agency. We believe that
the time is now for Congress to enact this
enlightened policy to ensure that the results of
research conducted by NIH can be more readily
accessed, shared and built upon ­ to maximize the
return on our collective investment in science and to further the public good.

As we noted in a letter to Congress urging action
on this policy nearly three years ago, we object
to barriers that hinder, delay or block the
spread of scientific knowledge supported by
federal tax dollars ­ including our own
works. Thanks to the internet, we can transform
the speed and ease with which the results of
research can be shared and built upon. However,
to our great frustration, the results of
NIH-supported medical research continue to be
largely inaccessible to taxpayers who have already paid for it.

Despite best intentions, the voluntary policy
enacted by NIH over two years ago has simply not
improved public access significantly. As active
scientists, it does not surprise us that a
request ­ with neither incentives nor
consequences attached ­ to submit our articles so
that they are freely available simply does not
make the lengthy ^Óto-do^Ô lists of our colleagues.
We firmly agree with NIH Director Elias Zerhouni,
who indicated in his testimony to the Senate LHHS
Appropriations Subcommittee this year that only a
mandatory policy will be an effective
policy. Requiring compliance is not a punitive
measure, but rather a simple step to ensure that
everyone, including scientists themselves, will
reap the benefits that public access can
provide. We have seen this amply demonstrated
in other innovative efforts within the NIH ­ most
notably with the database that contains the
outcome of the Human Genome Project.

The public at large also has a significant stake
in seeing that this research is made more widely
available. When a woman goes online to find what
treatment options are available to battle breast
cancer, she will find many opinions, but
peer-reviewed research of the highest quality
often remains behind a high-fee barrier. Families
seeking clinical trial updates for a loved one
with Huntington's disease search in vain because
they do not have a journal
subscription. Librarians, physicians, health
care workers, students, journalists, and
investigators at thousands of academic
institutions and companies are currently hindered
by unnecessary costs and delays in gaining access
to publicly funded research results.

Over the past three years, public access to work
produced in other countries has been greatly
expanded. Both government and philanthropic
funding agencies in several nations, including
the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Brazil,
France, and Australia have outpaced the U.S. in
advancing policies for sharing the results of
their funded research, with rules that are more
stringent than those now employed by the NIH. In
the United Kingdom alone, 5 of the 8 Research
Councils and the leading foundations that support
science have enacted mandatory public access
policies; it is now estimated that 90% of the
biomedical research funded in the U.K. is covered
by a mandatory enhanced- or open-access policy.
Enhanced public access, will not, of course, mean
the end of medical and scientific journals at
all. They will continue to exercise peer-review
over submitted papers as the basis for deciding
which papers to accept for publication, just as
they do now. The experience of dozens of
publishers has shown that even with embargo
periods of 6 months (or shorter), journals
continue to thrive. In addition, since this
policy will apply only to NIH-funded research;
journals will contain significant numbers of
articles not covered by this requirement as well
as other articles and commentary invaluable to
the science community. Journals will continue to
be the hallmark of achievement in scientific
research, and we will depend on them.

The NIH, with Congress^Ò direction, has the means
today to promote enhanced access to
taxpayer-funded research through the National
Library of Medicine. NIH grantees should be
required to provide to the NLM an electronic copy
of the final version of all manuscripts accepted
for publication by legitimate medical and
scientific journals, after peer review. As soon
as possible after the time of publication, NIH
should make these reports freely available to all
through their digital archive, PubMed Central (PMC).

We strongly encourage you to realize this overdue
reform by adopting language in the FY08
Appropriations measure that requires the NIH
Public Access Policy to be made mandatory.

Signed by 26 Nobel Laureates:

Peter Agre, Chemistry, 2003
Sidney Altman, Chemistry, 1989
Paul Berg, Chemistry, 1980
Michael Bishop, Physiology or Medicine, 1989
Baruch Blumberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1976
Gunter Blobel, Physiology or Medicine, 1999
Paul Boyer, Chemistry, 1997
Sydney Brenner, Physiology or Medicine, 2002
Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry, 1988
Edmond Fischer, Physiology or Medicine, 1992
Paul Greengard, Physiology or Medicine, 2000
Leland Hartwell, Physiology or Medicine, 2001
Robert Horvitz, Physiology or Medicine, 2002
Eric Kandel, Physiology or Medicine, 2000
Arthur Kornberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1959
Harold Kroto, Chemistry, 1996
Roderick MacKinnon, Chemistry, 2003
Kary Mullis, Chemistry, 1993
Ferid Murad, Physiology or Medicine, 1998
Joseph Murray, Physiology or Medicine, 1990
Marshall Nirenberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1968
Stanley Prusiner, Physiology or Medicine, 1997
Richard Roberts, Physiology or Medicine, 1993
Hamilton Smith, Physiology or Medicine, 1978
Harold Varmus, Physiology or Medicine, 1989
James Watson, Physiology or Medicine, 1962
Received on Fri Jul 13 2007 - 18:19:02 BST