For too long, medical journals have controlled and manipulated the release of scientific information to enhance profits and prestige.

Journals such as JAMA, Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, are multimillion-dollar businesses, thanks to the U.S. government, scientists around the globe and plentiful drug advertisements.

The federal government funds the great proportion of medical research in hopes of improving our health. Once a study has been completed, researchers publish results in medical journals for two reasons. First, they believe their research is important and they wish to have others read and know about it. Second, publication in medical journals is necessary for the researcher to get promoted.

Medical journals do not pay authors for papers the way other magazines do. They get manuscripts for free. The journal then decides if the paper appears to meet criteria for publication and, if so, they send the paper to other scientists for what is called peer review.

If the paper is evaluated by fellow researchers as well done and meets journal standards, it is accepted and the journal publishes the report in a paper magazine, online, or both.

To summarize, the journals get the papers for free, asks other scientists to review the papers for free, and publish a magazine filled with federally funded research that nets the journal millions of dollars through subscriptions and the sales of advertisements.

It gets worse.

Let's say I want my medical students to read a research paper in my class that I wrote and published in a medical journal. I can't use the paper unless I pay the journal to use the article I wrote, which was funded through your tax dollars.

California schools pay hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to subscribe to scientific journals that are jam-packed with research that has been funded by the state and federal governments and was conducted by our own researchers at California's colleges and universities.

Shouldn't the people who funded the research – taxpayers – have free access to the knowledge produced?

Medical journals also use draconian news embargoes that forbid health reporters from reporting on research in their journal until some arbitrary time and day that the journals select.

I am not sure how they got all this power and control, but it needs to change.

Journals certainly have a great business model – they get product for free, have inspectors improve the product for free, then sell it for outrageous prices to a public that needs to read the research.

Given that magazine production costs have fallen, opportunities exist to provide peer-reviewed research to the public online for free and still allow the journals to sell their product with added value.

Last month, two members of the House – Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and Carolyn B. Maloney, D-New York – introduced a bill called the Research Works Act. To maintain journal profits, the bill turns back the federal push to promote open access and research sharing. The bill forbids federal taxpayer-funded research from being required to be free to the public.

It's no surprise the bill is sponsored by medical publishers who fear Internet access and want to control information for profit. The bill is strongly opposed by researchers, scholars and librarians across the nation.

Given the power and prestige of California's scientific community, it is poised to lead the way to major change. Our university and college scientists can, and should, refuse to submit research articles, and they should refuse to review research articles from journals that don't allow free and open public access.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Michael Wilkes, M.D., is a professor of medicine at the University of California, Davis. Reach him at drwilkes@sacbee.com.

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Link:
Integrative Medicine: Medical research results need to be freely available