Whoa, Blades.
Journal articles may be publications of government-funded science
(most of the time), but the journals themselves are for profit or non-profit
organizations, without government subsidy. Your plan is to have their
contents freely distributed to all taxpayers? If you are really interested
in perusing the literature, get over to a library or subscribe like the
rest of us. As for the costs, I agree that they are expensive, but they are
also highly specialized (small market), usually without advertisements, and
most journals typically use high quality printing methods.
Also, I have never heard that only "health professionals" are
allowed to use medical libraries, and in fact, at my medical school library,
which I use nearly every day, I see people from all walks of life in there.
I hope this clarifies things for you.
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Original Message - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>My overriding concern is the fact that PubMed will not allow downloading of
>journal articles unless one is a "health professional" and has a signed
>contract with a "local health science library" defining costs, methods of
>payment, and method of delivery.
>>This policy denies inexpensive access to medical information often funded by
>public tax monies through NIH or through publicly funded universities. This
>is outrageous. Physicians and journals have a self interest in keeping
>information from the public, and they succeed only too well.
>>I happen to be one who doesn't have access to a medical school library.
>Fortunately there is a sympathetic librarian at a local hospital which
>belongs
>to the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and can get me copies of
>most articles at no cost.
>>I believe Medscape will supply on-line d/l of copies of journal articles
>but I
>think at a cost of $25 each which is outrageous and unwarranted.
>>I must confess, I worried about tackling PubMed/MedLine head on in regard to
>your suggestion about highlight terms and defining MESH terms, but also in
>regard to free (or very inexpensive) downloading of articles from them for
>the
>general public. (All us poor 'ol "health consumers"!). My concern is that
>the
>medical establishment has a choke lock on information and would undoubtedly
>resist such a policy. The only hope I see is for many large non-profit
>organizations to lobby for such a change.
>>Unfortunately when I approached two of them, they said it was a good idea,
>but
>they had no funds for that lobbying effort.
>>Freedom of access on the internet is almost useless with regard to medical
>journal/study information (unless there's some way I haven't been able to
>locate in 18 months of searching sporadically).
>>blades
>...........................................................................
Brett Lindenbach
brett at borcim.wustl.edu
Dept of Molecular Microbiology
Washington University School of Medicine
(314)362-2767
