[Insight-users] OPEN ACCESS: Open Letter to the U.S. Congress from 26 Nobel Laureates

[Luis Ibanez]

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’ 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 “to-do” 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’ 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