Above and Beyond Open Access

Information technology, an innovative publishing practice, and public debate synchronized in a most satisfying way over the past month.On Feb. 28, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published an article1 entitled, "Where Is The Evidence That Animal Research Benefits Humans?" The paper purported to demonstrate that "Much animal research into potential treatments for humans is wasted because it is poorly conducted and not evaluated through systematic reviews." Unsurprisingly, the article attracted much media attention, with headlines screaming, "Experiments On Animals Should End, Say Doctors" and "Animal Tests Poorly Conducted!" The findings are said to have boosted animal rights groups.However, after a number of weeks of discussion, the question that the title asks now can be definitively answered, and the criticisms the paper raises, addressed. This has been made possible by the enlightened publishing practices of the BMJ. This journal has led the way in providing free, online access to the full text of all research articles. So anyone with an interest can assess any article in its full glory, rather than relying on brief press reports.A second BMJ innovation is positively demiurgic: the editor publishes "Rapid Responses" to the journal's papers. These are letters from all sources, screened only for libel and breaches of patient confidentiality.While I write this, 17 Rapid Responses are online. 2 These include a number of invocations of animal's rights ("A Plea for Mercy" and "Animals Matter, Too"), and a provocative stance from a journalist ("Perverse Logic") that got rubbished in the most ruthless fashion ("Journalists Shouldn't Think in Black or White"). Entertaining stuff. More importantly, the respondents provide a barbed and penetrating critique of the study.The technical comments rained down from senior researchers and clinicians, even from the Chief Executive of the UK Medical Research Council. But the most succinct and damning remarks came from a graduate student ("Where is the Evidence It Doesn't?") who wrote: "... Most of the systematic reviews of animal models in this article were prompted by unsuccessful clinical trials in humans. The remainder appears to have been prompted directly by inconsistency between animal models and clinical data. This suggests a publication bias in systematic reviews of animal models ... which renders the conclusions reached in the paper invalid. ... animal models in those fields which lead to unsuccessful clinical trials or inconsistency are of poor quality but the findings cannot generalize to all animal models."With BMJ, we have more than open access; we have open review. This method achieves a critiquing level that is not possible with just peer review, publication and subsequent media coverage. It is surely in all our interests for the BMJ model to be widely adopted by other journals that publish research that is of immediate public interest.Unfortunately, it is unclear whether the BMJ will persevere with its ground-breaking approach, let alone if others will join in. The Journal's board, the BMJ Publishing Group, is considering charging for access, beginning in January 2005, to make up for a shortfall in income from other sources. This would be a serious blow to the fragile Open Access publishing movement (which, I must disclose, is the business of The Scientist's sister company, BioMed Central).The demise of the BMJ experiment would provide comfort for the dominant commercial publishers, such as Reed Elsevier, who maintain a strict pay-for-access policy for research articles. Not that they need to search around for reasons to be cheerful: Reed Elsevier recently announced record pre-tax profits in excess of €1 billion for the first time in its long history.It's been a most satisfying month; I just hope it continues.Richard Gallagher, Editor rgallagher@the-scientist.com

Above and Beyond Open Access

Mar 28, 2004

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