Public Access To Publicly Funded Research Should Stay Free and Open

Petitions, Politics — By Katy Gillivan on January 7, 2012 5:57 pm

Target: Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)

Goal: Stop Congress from limiting taxpayers’ access to publicly funded research.

Darrell Issa and Carolyn Maloney have co-sponsored a bill that would limit the public’s access to scientific research they funded in the first place. This law would benefit large publishing companies while hurting the public as well as the scientific community.  Congresswoman Maloney receives campaign contributions from publishing industry executives who are not even her own constituents.  As of right now the Public Access Policy of the government states that:

“…all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.”  http://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm

What this means is that the Public Access Policy only affects researchers funded by the government and thus the taxpaying public, they have twelve months during which to profit from the published research, and the policy must follow current copyright laws. The peer review process that gives scholarly journals their credibility and authority is largely conducted by volunteers and doesn’t add to the publisher’s costs.

This law is unnecessary and bankrolled by large corporations that would charge people $25-$30 dollars to access research they have already paid for with their tax dollars. The publishers of biomedical journals already make significant amounts of their revenue from public funds. The greed of these publishers will prevent America from moving into the future of research and prevent the public from benefiting from and having free access to the research they support with their tax dollars.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Darrell Issa and Carolyn Maloney,

The Research Works Act you have sponsored does American taxpayers a great disservice by putting the greed of large publishers over the rights of the public to be able to freely access the scientific research they fund.

You are not serving the needs and best interests of your constituents by sponsoring this bill. The bill is redundant and unnecessary as currently Public Access Policy states that it must be implemented in a manner that is consistent with copyright law. Clearly the influence of corporate contributions has caused you to forget the interests of the public you are supposed to serve.

Stop pandering to the corporate publishers who contribute to your campaigns and start serving the taxpayers and American citizens you are supposed to represent.

Sincerely,

[Your Name Here]