Eva Tallaksen, World 'needs global R&D health treaty', SciDev.Net, March 1, 2005. Excerpt: 'According to the proposal, submitted to the World Health Organization Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Health, and the World Health Assembly Executive Board on 24 February, parties to the treaty would each have to devote a proportion of their gross domestic product to medical research. Through a mechanism modelled on the way that greenhouse gas emissions can be traded through the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, countries would be able to earn credits against their funding commitments by, for instance, transferring technology to developing countries.....There is a growing feeling among [supporters] that while investment in health research is greater than it has ever been, the existing focus on commercial production of patented drugs has not succeeded in providing drugs to those who need them most. They hope to encourage the focus to shift towards making effective therapies more widely accessible by, for instance, making the results of publicly funded research freely available through 'open access' agreements, and encouraging medical researchers worldwide to share more information.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/02/2005 07:41:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
