[open-science] Crucially overlooked Ebola research article is paywalled at... Elsevier

Wed Apr 15 17:17:11 UTC 2015

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 5:04 PM, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 10:11 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> But here's a testable, cheap, scientific experiment.
>> put all the world's medical facts onto 10000 memory sticks (or mobile
>> phones, or Raspberry Pis, or whatever) and send them to an anglophone West
>> African country (because the literature is in English). Monitor reported
>> health outcomes after 10 years. Compare with a neighbouring country which
>> didn't have the memory sticks.
>>
>
> Liberia has 51 doctors <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Liberia> (ie
> one for every 76,000 citizens).  What would you do with the other 9,949
> sticks?
>

Give them to teachers, local government officials, and even school children.

>
> Do we really think that the lack of knowledge (which is different from
> "all the world's medical facts" BTW),
>

I know it's different am trying to do something about that.

> was the only, or even primary, factor here?
>

Even if it's only a small contributory factor it's not excusable.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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