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

Wed Apr 15 20:26:21 UTC 2015

As the main point of this discussion was using Ebola outbrake as a
support for the statement "closed access kills", let me address some
of the arguments.

1. I don't care about political statements made by politicians. I care
about political statements made by scientists, because if the
statement is easy to falsify or easy to show that it's unscientific,
it undermines the credibility of the scientific community as a whole.
Politicians speak for themselves (kind of). Scientists speak for the
community. That's why harm done by people like Wakefield (of
vaccine-autism link) extends way beyond their particular study. Are
you willing to sacrifice credibility of the community for the sake of
pushing OA? Why?

2. Study on hypothesis "Closed access kills" does not require
unethical research - retrospective study is not something uncommon in
medicine. Studies on medical errors are showing that knowledge-related
constitute ca. 5% of all medical errors (Dovey et al, 2002), but
interestingly physicians retrospectively make wrong diagnosis again,
even if they have all the knowledge required for making correct one
(Kostopoulou et al, 2009). Also, if you factor iatrogenesis in
(expressed for example as overdiagnosis), in some fields of medicine
netto effect of OA might be negative. Nevertheless, such a study seems
feasible, and certainly ethical.

3. Some of you merged systemic problems of scientific communication,
peer-review, and what not with OA. OA does not solve all problems,
only some. Especially in medicine, with fast progress in some fields,
the shear amount of papers makes it easy to overlook something. That's
why portals like Medscape (free, not open) are so popular.

4. Peter's "political" statement on openness that would prevent
wasting money spent on research can be backed up by science. Remember
Sommer's "Delay in sharing research data is costing lives" opinion in
Nat. Med? His opinion was based on study in conservation biology field
(O'Donell et al, 2010). Even rough assessment of data sharing delay in
medicine using the same methodology would be supporting Peter's
statement. Also, there are many indicators of well-being, healthcare
status knowledge dissemination or effectiveness of money spending.
People are linking money spent on music schools to crime rates -
succesfully. Really, this is not a rocket science. Talk to people of
evidence-based policy making. If "political" statement could be backed
by science, why we shouldn't do it or at least call for such research?

5. When it comes to making an impact, Tom Morris' comment is spot on.
I would only add a reference to a literature review (Pakenham-Walsh
and Bukachi, 2009) on information needs of healthcare workers in
Africa. Access to literature is indeed an issue, but more often access
to knowledge (especially in local language) has often a bigger impact.
The last time we had this discussion I offered an idea, that at least
in medicine, OA summaries of recent progress in healthcare translated
into 40 local languages would be more beneficial short term to
healthcare in poor countries, than giving them full access to research
literature (I have no doubts in the longer term that's the way to go).
And I declare, that I can help in drafting the proposal for OA medical
summaries and help in getting people on board. Maybe B&M Gates
Foundation would be willing to support it.

References
1. Dovey SM, Meyers DS, Phillips RL Jr, Green LA, Fryer GE, Galliher
JM, Kappus J, Grob P. A preliminary taxonomy of medical errors in
family practice. Qual Saf Health Care. 2002 Sep;11(3):233-8.
2. Kostopoulou O, Devereaux-Walsh C, Delaney BC. Missing celiac
disease in family medicine: the importance of hypothesis generation.
Med Decis Making. 2009 May-Jun;29(3):282-90.
3. Sommer J. The delay in sharing research data is costing lives. Nat
Med. 2010 Jul;16(7):744.
4. O'Donnell RP, Supp SR, Cobbold SM. Hindrance of conservation
biology by delays in the submission of manuscripts. Conserv Biol. 2010
Apr;24(2):615-20.
5. Pakenham-Walsh N, Bukachi F. Information needs of health care
workers in developing countries: a literature review with a focus on
Africa. Hum Resour Health. 2009 Apr 8;7:30.

PS

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 7:17 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> 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 (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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