Re: Open Access and For-Pay Access (to the same IR materials)

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

I respect Peter's position but wish to remark that using the postal
service and Amtrak as illistrations hardly strengthens his case.  
Further, I am not an advocate of the end of peer review.  My point is
simply that this is where Open Access will take us inevitably, to
postpublication peer review.  It is OA advocates who believe that what
Peter does for a living is a waste of time, not me.  My own preference
(which will not be granted, as I pray to the wrong god) is that OA would
not touch legacy publications like Peter's but will focus entirely on new
forms of publishing, things like arXiv, not Nature, Foreign Affairs, or
the publications of the American Diabetes Association.

Joe Esposito

On 4/29/05, Peter Banks <pbanks@diabetes.org> wrote:
> In clinical medicine, subsidizing prepublication peer review is more
> like subsidizing the postal service or Amtrak than General Motors: it is
> an essential service that cannot be abandoned without harm to the
> public.
> 
> In the wake of the scandals over COX-2 inhbitors, I think the
> conclusion is that journal editors need to be more, not less, rigorous
> in peer review. I certainly don't think peer review is perfect, and I
> hope we find ways to improve it and perhaps make it more cost-efficient.
> It would, however, be reckless and irresponsible to abandon it in
> medicine.
> 
> I am troubled by how often I hear arguments like Joe's, which are
> perfectly sensible in certain nonmedical fields but completely
> inapplicable to medicine. Please, we need to think of the safety and
> welfare of patients in any overhaul of medical publishing.
> 
> Peter Banks
> Publisher
> American Diabetes Association
> 1701 North Beauregard Street
> Alexandria, VA 22311
> 703/299-2033
> FAX 703/683-2890
> Email: pbanks@diabetes.org