PLoS Medicine Offers Free Access to Medical Research

Posted on October 29, 2004

PLoS Medicine is a a new general medical journal with a non-traditional publishing model. Unlike most medical journals which are available only through costly subscriptions, PLoS Medicine is available free of charge and accessible to everyone through the Internet. PLoS Medicine is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a coalition of researchers and physicians founded in 2000 by Nobel Prize winner and former National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus, M.D.

"The traditional model of publishing biomedical research fails to take advantage of technological advances that make the scientific literature more useful for scientists, physicians, and the general public in both economically advanced and developing countries," said Varmus, now president and chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "Journals such as PLoS Medicine, available to everyone via the Internet and public digital libraries, provide health care personnel, their patients, and the citizens who have paid for much of the research with new findings from credible, peer-reviewed sources."

PLoS Medicine's comes as many experts continue to argue that medical journals must recognize that taxpayers fund much of the research they're publishing and acknowledge that consumers should have access to it at no charge. The U.S. Congress has publicly encouraged increased access to peer-reviewed medical journals, particularly if the research was conducted with government funds. Twenty-five Nobel Prize winners echoed the request. In August, the National Institutes of Health unveiled a proposal to require journal articles that use NIH-funded research to be publicly available. NIH provides more than $25 billion a year to pay for scientific and medical research conducted at public and private institutions throughout the country.

PLoS Medicine says their peer-review process is designed to be as rigorous as the best-known medical journals, and uniquely collaborative, with nearly 100 experts from 28 countries on all five continents involved in the decision-making process. The editorial staff has experience producing scientific research publications, including experience with The Lancet, Nature, Journal of Clinical Investigation, British Medical Journal, and others.

The journal's inaugural issue features peer-reviewed research articles on the global burden of disease, how the immune system is altered by smoking, fluid depletion in children with malaria, how HIV drugs affect blood lipids, and a surprising trigger for celiac disease. In addition to the research papers, PLoS Medicine contains a provocative section for essays, commentaries and debates. In the first issue, topics include domestic violence, palliative care in the world's poorest countries, women's reproductive rights, and tackling Africa's AIDS epidemic.

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical research a public resource. PLoS publishes open-access journals of original peer-reviewed research, including PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine, which are available at no cost on the Internet.