BMJ  2007;335:906 (3 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39384.638241.DB

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US passes bill granting mandatory access to data

Boston

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Free public access is to be made available to the results of research funded by the National Institutes of Health, the US Senate has decided.

Widespread non-compliance with an existing voluntary public access initiative has led to support for the mandatory programme. According to a government report issued in January 2006, less than 4% of articles were made publicly available in the eight month period initiation of the voluntary programme in May 2005 (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/Final_Report_20060201.pdf).

The Senate passed a bill on 23 October that requires researchers who are funded by the National Institutes of Health to submit their manuscripts to the agency's National Library of Medicine for publication in PubMed within 12 months of publication in a peer reviewed journal.

Passage of the bill was urged by 26 Nobel prize winners who signed a letter to Congress stating that patients and researchers stand to benefit from free access to . . . [Full text of this article]

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