What's New Friday November 2, 2007

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 2 Nov 07   Washington, DC

1. OPEN ACCESS: SHOULD NIH RESEARCH BE FREELY AVAILABLE?
Taxpayers say they paid for the research and shouldn’t have to pay again 
to see the results.  Even the libraries are strapped by subscription 
costs.  NIH director Zerhouni urges researchers to publish in open-access 
journals, but they don’t. They publish in expensive high-prestige 
journals.  So both the House and Senate put language in HHS appropriations 
requiring open access.  Scientific societies and commercial publishers 
opposed it.  It was also opposed by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) who tried to 
gut it.  Why, you ask?  One of his top contributors is Elsevier, which 
spends about $4M a year buying members of Congress.  Bush is threatening 
to veto the bill anyway, to save money for wars.

2. HALF ACCESS: EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON PUBLIC HEALTH.
It seemed to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that 
climate-change was something it should pay attention to, so Committee 
chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) called Dr. Julie Geberding, director of the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to testify.  As required, she 
submitted her written testimony, which goes into the record, to the White 
House 24 hours in advance.  John Marburger, head of the White House 
science office, realized that the situation she described was serious; 
decisive action was needed at once - so he deleted half the report.  The 
testimony, Marburger explained in Nature, failed to point out that in 
agriculture the effect might be beneficial.  Perhaps Jack has been in 
touch with Arthur Robinson 
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn080803.html . 

3. ZERO ACCESS: CREW FAILS TO NOTICE THE HYDROGEN BOMBS.   
A B-52 flies from Minot AFB, North Dakota, to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, 
with six nuclear armed cruise missiles under its wing and no one knows how 
it happened?  The Air Force "disciplined" 65 airmen and fired a munitions 
officer.  Case closed?  I was an Air Force Officer in the early 50s and 
know the nuclear routine.  An amazing safety record was set.  B-36s from 
Minot, crammed with hydrogen bombs, were in the air 7-24 ready to deliver 
their load to the USSR - and not a single serious mistake.     

4. "SNAKE OIL SCIENCE: THE TRUTH ABOUT ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE"
By R. Barker Bausell (Oxford, 2007), is now in book stores.  A "research 
methodologist" at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Bausell was 
Research Director of an NIH-funded CAM Research Center.  He explains how 
the placebo effect is packaged and sold to a gullible public and a 
frightening number of health professionals, with particular emphasis on 
acupuncture.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
---
Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org
What's New is moving to a different listserver and our
subscription process has changed. To change your subscription
status please visit this link:
http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnew&A=1