Towards Open Access For Scientific Research

The rapid spread of the Internet spawned hope that the world's information would be at people's finger tips. All you would need to do is click and access.

For more than three fourths of the world's population this is still just a sentence. Bring yourself to the biting harsh reality. Literacy is just a notion. Majority of the people are destined to the filth and squalor of grinding poverty. Against these odds, a few people get latched on to better mode of institutionalized delivery of education, health care and services. For the rest, this wide chasm seems impossible to cover.

With this backdrop, I shall only deal with the problems in accessing scientific journals in a developing country like India. For long, the basic research has been concentrated in the U.S. or Europe. While Nehru had intentions to challenge this dominance by setting up various scientific bodies, like everything else, it was doomed to failure. Huge amount of public funds were wasted and there is an alarming fall of scientific notations in journals of repute.

It is interesting to note that most of these journals of repute (which tout an abstract figure called as Impact Factor to sell their products) remain the exclusive preserve of the rich universities abroad. They have an aura of exclusivity and often price their products beyond the purchasing power of the individuals in the developing countries by setting up prohibitively expensive access controls.

The Open Access movement wanted to change all that. Open Access was attacked on all fronts by these leading publishers, who ganged up against the advocates of free open access for all. Primarily, the value of the scientific citation only makes sense if it can be applied across the spectrum of population. By making this exclusive preserve of a few, these publishers are harming the interests of the majority.

Most of the western medical journals have traditionally been focusing on the lifestyle diseases like obesity or hypertension. No doubt that these chronic diseases need funds to be investigated. Yet, there is not much initiative to investigate neglected diseases like tuberculosis. Western researchers advocated the need for improvement and control when it was being increasingly observed in their populace due to migration or the scourge of AIDS. This is an example of waking up to the realities in their own backyard when they could have devoted substantial funding to fight it at the outset elsewhere.

Stepping in this exclusive preserve is the big bad world of pharmaceutical slush funds. Billions of dollars are invested in marketing as compared to research. Most of these breakthroughs are released to these exclusive journals. They get to fund and advertise various sections. How do these journals maintain neutrality in the face of advertising? There is no concrete answer to the same. Basically, a medical journal then becomes a vehicle for the pharmaceutical companies to promote their products. First, the journals get that exclusivity tag. Then they get their impact factor by extensively cross referring the articles from other journals. Then, after acquiring the halo around their labels, they earn huge profits by advertising the pharmaceuticals products as if it is the next best thing to have happened to mankind. This goes against their own professed claims to inform the scientific community in a free and fair manner. The latest in the medical and scientific circles remains out of purview for majority of the health care providers and scientists across the world. The assertions made in the journals cannot be brought in focus and there is a vast disconnect in what gets published and what gets practiced.

There seems to be a western conspiracy to maintain their high standards by deliberately keeping the flow of information restricted. In this manner, they believe that they can keep their exclusivity tag intact. I have been facing a huge problem in trying to get the journals to respond to their double standards. Most of the write ups being featured hold relevance to a developing country like India; yet they are not accessible to a vast majority of the health service providers in India.

As a result, the pharmaceutical companies exploit this to the hilt. They are often given as freebies in the name of scientific services. They have specific funds devoted to this cause and often reinforce the brand recall while prescription. Where does the prescription neutrality remain? How does the doctor assure that the patient is getting the best deal for money? Or for the trust that he has imposed in the doctor to treat him with the best possible resources?

The importance of being updated cannot be under estimated. Yet, I find it odd that the journals allow for staggered access to the articles after six months, or for some, after years; what relevance would it hold at a later stage? The crying need is to make all access free and fair, irrespective of the country where the person is accessing the articles from.

Much of the basic research in our so called universities would not hold muster once it gets on the international stage. These universities and scientific organizations are one sided polytechnics who have not been able to align their priorities even after 50 years of independence. There is neither scientific temper nor any initiative shown to reach out to the opportunities that the internet opens up for us.

These statements cannot be applied generally and there are exceptions to the rule. I have been facing cynicism for this from within my own circles. Yet, it makes ample sense to fight this injustice and strive for better access to knowledge and practices. This would allow us to appreciate the issues in a holistic manner instead of the one-dimensional manner that we approach the situations. One major factor aiding this would be a free and fair access to ideas from across culture and organizations. Internet has aided this exchange on a global scale. This helps to assimilate the best practices which ultimately benefit us as a whole.