NIH & Recommendations as of 1/12/05

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Of possible interest, as reported in: The Scientist, 1/13/2005

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20050113/02

'Open access' announcement scuttled:  NIH cancels teleconference with
Zerhouni, reportedly over fears of political controversy

By Ted Agres

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) abruptly cancelled a
teleconference with director Elias A. Zerhouni scheduled for Tuesday
(January 11), at which he was to announce "a new policy designed to
accelerate the public's access to published articles resulting from
NIH-funded research."

Zerhouni had planned to unveil the final version of the agency's
long-awaited and controversial policy regarding publication of
NIH-sponsored research results. The agency's draft version, issued
September 3, 2004, requested that electronic copies of all final
manuscripts based on NIH-sponsored research be made available through
NIH's PubMed Central database 6 months after being accepted for journal
publication.

It was anticipated that the final policy would have extended the time
frame to 12 months, several sources said yesterday. The change was
intended to be a compromise with scientific journal publishers and
nonprofit research societies that had argued that open access would
negatively affect their businesses or abilities to continue operating as
membership organizations. The NIH did not say when the announcement might
be rescheduled.

NIH spokesman Don Ralbovsky yesterday refused to discuss why the planned
announcement had been cancelled. But Bush administration officials were
reportedly concerned that the controversy might become an issue during
confirmation hearings of Michael O. Leavitt, nominated to become the new
secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which
NIH is a component. Leavitt is scheduled to appear next week before the
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, as well as the
Senate Finance Committee.

Officials at several biomedical research organizations yesterday said they
had heard reports that the White House, concerned about Leavitt's
confirmation, had instructed NIH to cancel the open-access policy
announcement--a matter that was first reported by Washington Fax, a daily
science policy news service. "I have to question their logic," said one
association official, who did not wish to be named. "With all the issues
Leavitt will face, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security
privatization, why are they so concerned about open access? They already
have a controversial draft proposal in place. Why wouldn't Leavitt be
asked about that?"

White House spokesperson Maria Tamburri yesterday declined to discuss the
matter, as did HHS spokesman Bill Pierce.

"It's a shame NIH didn't have the press briefing, because then we'd know
what we're dealing with," said Martin Frank, executive director of the
American Physiological Association and coordinator of DC Principles
Coalition, a group of nonprofit scholarly publishers critical of NIH's
publication policy. "If they change the timetable [for submitting final
manuscripts], we'll look at it and decide if it's good, bad, or whatever."

The existing draft policy requests but does not require investigators
whose research was supported in whole or in part by NIH to deposit the
final, peer-reviewed manuscript with the National Library of Medicine's
PubMed Central after it has been accepted for publication. NIH would
embargo the manuscript from release for 6 months after the publisher's
date of publication. Extending this time frame to 12 months, however,
would make the policy coincide with the practice of many scientific
associations.

"We already make content available on the Web at 12 months through links
at Medline," said Alice Ra'anan, American Physiological Society
spokesperson. "They'd be better off using the definitive article rather
than the manuscript. NIH could create a better service less expensively by
linking to the finished articles rather than creating a huge database of
authors' manuscripts," she said.

####