NIH Public Access Mandate Passes Senate

[Jennifer McLennan <jennifer@arl.org>]

Alliance for Taxpayer Access
www.taxpayeraccess.org

For immediate release
October 24, 2007

Contact:
Jennifer McLennan
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org
(202) 296-2296 ext. 121

MANDATE FOR PUBLIC ACCESS TO NIH-FUNDED RESEARCH POISED TO BECOME 
LAW

Full U.S. Senate Approves Bill Containing Support for Access To 
Taxpayer-Funded Research

Washington, D.C. -- October 24, 2007 - The U.S. Senate last night 
approved the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill 
(S.1710), including a provision that directs the National 
Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its Public Access Policy 
by requiring rather than requesting participation by researchers. 
The bill will now be reconciled with the House Appropriations 
Bill, which contains a similar provision, in another step toward 
support for public access to publicly funded research becoming 
United States law.

"Last night's Senate action is a milestone victory for public 
access to taxpayer-funded research," said Heather Joseph, 
Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and 
Academic Resources Coalition, a founding member of the ATA). 
"This policy sets the stage for researchers, patients, and the 
general public to benefit in new and important ways from our 
collective investment in the critical biomedical research 
conducted by the NIH."

Under a mandatory policy, NIH-funded researchers will be required 
to deposit copies of eligible manuscripts into the National 
Library of Medicine's online database, PubMed Central. Articles 
will be made publicly available no later than 12 months after 
publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The current NIH Public Access Policy, first implemented in 2005, 
is a voluntary measure and has resulted in a de deposit rate of 
less than 5% by individual investigators. The advance to a 
mandatory policy is the result of more than two years of 
monitoring and evaluation by the NIH, Congress, and the 
community.

"We thank our Senators for taking action on this important 
issue," said Pat Furlong, Founding President and CEO of Parent 
Project Muscular Dystrophy. "This level of access to NIH-funded 
research will impact the disease process in novel ways, improving 
the ability of scientists to advance therapies and enabling 
patients and their advocates to participate more effectively. The 
advance is timely, much-needed, and -- we anticipate -- an 
indication of increasingly enhanced access in future."

"American businesses will benefit tremendously from improved 
access to NIH research," said William Kovacs, U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce vice president for environment, technology and 
regulatory affairs. "The Chamber encourages the free and timely 
dissemination of scientific knowledge produced by the NIH as it 
will improve both the public and industry's ability to become 
better informed on developments that impact them -- and on 
opportunities for innovation." The Chamber is the world's largest 
business federation, representing more than three million 
businesses of every size, sector, and region.

"We welcome the NIH policy being made mandatory and thank 
Congress for backing this important step," said Gary Ward, 
Treasurer of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). "Free 
and timely public access to scientific literature is necessary to 
ensure that new discoveries are made as quickly as feasible. It's 
the right thing to do, given that taxpayers fund this research." 
The ASCB represents 11,000 members and publishes the highly 
ranked peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Joseph added, "On behalf of the taxpayers, patients, researchers, 
students, libraries, universities, and businesses that pressed 
this bill forward with their support over the past two years, the 
ATA thanks Congress for throwing its weight behind the success of 
taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded research."

Negotiators from the House and Senate are expected to meet to 
reconcile their respective bills this fall. The final, 
consolidated bill will have to pass the House and the Senate 
before being delivered to the President at the end of the year.

###

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient, 
academic, research, and publishing organizations that supports 
open public access to the results of federally funded research. 
The Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed 
articles stemming from taxpayer-funded research become fully 
accessible and available online at no extra cost to the American 
public. Details on the ATA may be found at 
http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.

--------------------------
Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications
SPARC
(The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition)
http://www.arl.org/sparc
(202) 296-2296 ext 121
jennifer@arl.org