INDICES> Medical Journals Give Poor Nations Net Access

["Arlene E. Silva" <arlene@usa.healthnet.org>]

INDICES> Medical Journals Give Poor Nations Net Access
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Dear all,

Holly Ladd, SATELLIFE's Executive Director, asked me to share this
good
news with the discussion groups.

Arlene Silva
Research Assistant
SATELLIFE

>Medical journals give poor nations Net access
>
>  By John Donnelly, Globe Staff, 7/9/2001
>
>  WASHINGTON - Seeking to bridge a vast digital divide between rich
and
>poor nations, the
>  publishers of the six biggest medical journals today will give
>scientists in the developing world free
>  Internet access to nearly 1,000 research publications.
>
>  The World Health Organization called the offer of free access to
the
>journals, some of which cost
>  thousands of dollars a year for a single subscription, a
breakthrough
>for scientists and doctors in
>  Africa, Asia, and Latin America battling an array of diseases.
>
>  ''All of a sudden what has become a closed rich boys' club is now
>welcoming in scientists in poor
>  countries,'' said Barbara Aronson, the collection development
librarian
>at the World Health
>  Organization in Geneva. ''Even those scientists out in the bush,
they
>can now e-mail the publications
>  or the scientists and say, `You got any more on this?' or, `This is
>what I've found out here.' It opens
>  up the world to them.''
>
>  The six publishing companies - Elsevier Science, Springer Verlag,
>Wolters Kluwer International
>  Health and Science, Harcourt General, Blackwell, and John Wiley -
>approached the World Health
>  Organization with an offer of free Internet access to public
>institutions in 62 countries.
>
>  After several discussions, the companies agreed to give the
material
>free to public institutions in
>  countries with a gross national product of less than $1,000 per
capita,
>and at slashed rates to
>  nations with GNP per capita between $1,000 and $3,000 - another 34
>countries. But the offer,
>  which will be announced today in London, doesn't extend to some
>countries hardest hit by the
>  AIDS pandemic, notably South Africa and Botswana, because their GNP
per
>capita is over
>  $3,000.
>
>  The development is part of a movement in global health of pricing
>products at vastly reduced levels,
>  or at no cost, in the developing world, while maintaining high
profit
>margins in rich countries.
>
>  The publishers of the journals preempted a public battle - some
>scientists have been asking that
>  past articles be made available free of charge - in contrast to
>pharmaceutical companies, which
>  engaged in heated debates with activists and politicians over
cutting
>prices for their drugs in poor
>  countries.
>
>  ''In this case, nobody from Oxfam had to write a polemic, nobody
had to
>sue anybody,'' Aronson
>  said. ''This may very well have been a preemptive move, but if so,
it's
>an elegant one, a gracious
>  one, and a generous one.''
>
>  The offer follows a call last September by United Nations Secretary
>General Kofi Annan to use the
>  Internet to strengthen public health services around the world.
Called
>the Health InterNetwork, the
>  project's fundamental principle is equity of access to information.
>
>  George Ayittey, an economist at American University in Washington
and a
>native of Ghana, said
>  that the offer for free scientific and clinical articles was a
crucial
>step for African public health
>  workers, but said many more initiatives were needed to build
>infrastructure.
>
>  ''My main concern is to accelerate this in Africa you need to
expand
>and strengthen the
>  telecommunications infrastructure,'' said Ayittey. ''In many
places,
>they have crumbled. In Nigeria,
>  the most populous country, telephones don't work. In Zimbabwe, it
takes
>three months to get a
>  new telephone line. In the long run, these are some of the things
we
>need to do to accelerate the
>  flow of information into Africa.''
>
>  But he applauded the initiative. ''It's amazing the debt of
information
>there,'' he said. ''New research
>  knowledge always has been a problem in Africa. Anything that brings
new
>information is a good
>  thing.''
>
>  The initiative is expected to last at least three years, when the
>publishers will decide whether to
>  continue it. Access will begin in January. The journals include the
>African Journal of Ecology,
>  Wound Repair and Regeneration, Annals of Botany, and Regional
>Anesthesia and Pain Medicine,
>  among the nearly 1,000.
>
>  The list doesn't include the New England Journal of Medicine or the
>Journal of the American
>  Medical Association because those publishers weren't approached,
>Aronson said. ''We just took
>  the six largest publishers at this time,'' she said. She added that
>some publishers, including the
>  British Medical Journal and the American Journal of Epidemiology,
>already were providing their
>  content free to the poorest countries.
>
>  ''This is going to be very big,'' Aronson said. As an example of
the
>need, she said that when
>  scientists from Africa attend WHO meetings in Geneva, they almost
>always rush to see her on their
>  lunch breaks and ''plead with me to have things photocopied from
the
>journals.''
>
>  ''As another example, in Africa, the way it works now, medical
students
>need to write a thesis in
>  their last year based on practical applications,'' she said. ''They
>study from outdated textbooks
>  where there is no access to journals. So they write to our regional
>office in Zimbabwe and ask for
>  them to send a few articles on a subject. They write with whatever
they
>get. Imagine what this
>  initiative can do to doctor training in Africa.''
>
>  John Donnelly can be reached by e - mail at
>mailto:%20donnelly@globe.com
>
>  This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 7/9/2001.
>  © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.




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