NIH on Wikipedia: If you can’t beat ‘em…
The Washington Post’s Ibby Caputo reports that the National Institutes of Health, upon realizing that more folks are looking for health information online and that many of those folks are ending up on Wikipedia, has started to teach its scientists how to create and edit Wikipedia entries.
Rather than trying to compete with the free online encyclopedia, NIH seems to have chosen to embrace the inevitability that users will turn to Wikipedia for health advice. If they’re going to go there anyway, then NIH is at least going to try to make sure they’re getting the best possible information.
To this end, the NIH and the Wikimedia Foundation (the nonprofit which publishes the encyclopedia) hosted a workshop attended by about 100 NIH scientists this month in which they learned how to edit and even create Wikipedia entries.
Progress on open access issue not what it seems
A press release from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access yesterday raised hopes that permanent open access to federally funded research through the National Institutes of Health had been assured by President Obama.
As the release pointed out, on Wednesday, Obama signed the 2009 Consolidated Appropriations Act (PDF), which includes a provision making the NIH Public Access Policy permanent (section 217 on page 621 of this PDF document). The NIH policy that had been in place requires eligible NIH-funded researchers to deposit electronic copies of their peer-reviewed manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine’s online archive, PubMed Central, but the provision had to be renewed every year.
That sounds like a positive step toward ensuring public access to publicly funded research, right?
Well, not so fast.
The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. and others, is still active and has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
AHCJ opposes that bill because it would completely reverse the NIH’s open access policy and would essentially nullify the provision that Obama just signed into law. As Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said, “… any later piece of legislation modifies the current law, so Obama could sign something into law and then soon invalidate it by signing a new bill sent to him after approval by Congress.”
15 areas get a share of NIH’s stimulus funding
The NIH has designated $200 million of its stimulus money for 200 or more “Challenge Grants” in specific areas where NIH has judged the money will have the most immediate impact.
“Challenge Areas” in which funds will be available:
- Behavior, Behavioral Change, and Prevention
- Bioethics
- Biomarker Discovery and Validation
- Clinical Research
- Comparative Effectiveness Research
- Enhancing Clinical Trials
- Enabling Technologies
- Genomics
- Health Disparities
- Information Technology for Processing Health Care Data for Research
- Regenerative Medicine
- Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education
- Smart Biomaterials - Theranostics
- Stem Cells
- Translational Science
AHCJ to Obama: Improve access to federal experts
The Association of Health Care Journalists has urged President Barack Obama to end inherited policies that require public affairs officers to approve journalists’ interviews with federal staff.
Such policies, which are in place at such critical agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and most agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services, hamper newsgathering and make it difficult for reporters to fulfill their obligation to hold government agencies accountable, AHCJ said in a letter to the Obama administration.
Federal public information officers can play a key role in facilitating and coordinating communication, but have been used in recent years to inhibit the flow of information to the public rather than foster it. AHCJ members have reported waiting for days for permission to conduct an interview, or have had requests ignored or denied entirely.
Read the full statement and see the letter (PDF) that was sent to Obama.
AHCJ: Proposal would be blow to public access
Legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 3 “would constitute a blow to the public’s right to access vital scientific data” if it goes forward, according to a statement by the Association of Health Care Journalists.
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)
The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. and others, would reverse a National Institutes of Health policy that requires federal research grantees to provide their peer-reviewed articles to PubMed Central, a free online database. Under the existing policy, manuscripts resulting from federally-funded research must be made publicly available within 12 months of their publication date.
Related
See what others are saying about the proposed legislation:
- DigitalKoans: Fair Copyright in Research Works Act: Ten Associations and Advocacy Groups Send Letter to Judiciary Committee Members Opposing Act
- Free Government Information: Act now for open access to govt funded research
- American Library Association:Conyers Introduces H.R. 801, “The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act”
- Open Access News: Comments on the Conyers bill, #4
- Open Access Blog: Nathan Georgette follows the money and finds that “Conyers’ third single largest campaign contributor in 2008 was the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
Health spending in stimulus plan called ‘wasteful’
Congressional Republican leaders have outlined what they think are “wasteful provisions in the Senate version of the nearly $900 billion stimulus bill that is being debated.”
Several health-related proposals are among those “wasteful” expenditures:
- $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD’s.
- $75 million for “smoking cessation activities.”
- $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.
- $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.
- $412 million for CDC buildings and property.
- $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Md.
- $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.
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