Publishers of scientific journals are outraged that the director of the National Institutes of Health, Harold Varmus, wants to publish medical research on the internet. On May 5, Varmus published a proposal for electronic publications in the biomedical sciences, a project to be called e-biomed. I am continuing to think about more effective use of electronic methods for disseminating the results of biomedical research, he wrote. He suggests two methods of submitting material to e- biomed: through editorial boards, or through a general repository. The editorial board option closely resembles existing methods of publishing papers in scientific journals, and indeed Varmus goes out of his way to acknowledge the strengths of the current system for published scientific work which he says has served the scientific community well for over 300 years.
Those words have not prevented publishers of the same scientific journal from venting furious criticism of Varmus’s proposal. It would make the journal – the paper journal, and also the journal web site – merely archival. Redundant, Dr Marcia Angell, executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, told the Associated Press. Insofar as that happened, it would weaken the journals and maybe even destroy them. Thomas E.DeCoursey, a professor of molecular biophysics at Rush Presbyterian St Luke’s Medical Center agreed that e-biomed: would serve mainly to lower the quality of scientific research. It would cheapen the value of scientific publication, diminish accountability of both scientists and reviewers and thus encourage fraud. Varmus has yet to reply to his critics.
