Category Archives: politics

We won the Battle of the Research Works Act. Now let’s win the War for Open Access.

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 27, 2012

Late last year Elsevier and two of its allies in Congress quietly introduced a bill that would have halted the trend towards increased public access to the results of government funded research headlined by the NIH’s Public Access Policy. This brazen act, which its backers hoped would pass unnoticed in the quiet of the holidays, […]

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Better version of “Boycott Elsevier” t-shirt

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 15, 2012

And here’s a hi-res version of the image if you want it. Some other versions I’ve been working on:  

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New bill in Congress would EXPAND federal public access policies!

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 9, 2012

A showdown is looming in Congress as defenders of the public interest have moved to counter the special interest sellout of the pending Research Works Act (RWA), which would end public access to the results of Federally funded research. A bipartisan group of legislators in both houses of  Congress just introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act […]

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Plagiarist or Puppet? US Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s reprehensible defense of Elsevier’s Research Works Act

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 13, 2012

There has been lots of activity this week surrounding the “Research Works Act“, a bill introduced in the US House of Representatives that seeks to end the NIH’s Public Access Policy. Despite the flurry of attention to the bill, its authors – Reps Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) have remained silent (save a […]

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Protect public access to taxpayer funded research

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 10, 2012

I have an op-ed out today in the New York Times prompted by a new effort by publishers to restrict public access to the results of publicly-funded scientific research. If you’re as incensed by this as I am, you have several important opportunities to weigh in. Help protect the NIH’s Public Access Policy in Congress If […]

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Our scientific societies need to quit the Association of American Publishers

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 7, 2012

By coming out in favor of the odious Research Works Act, which would end the NIH’s Public Access Policy, the American Association of Publishers has proven, once again, that it is eager to place its narrow interests ahead of those of the scientific community and public. It should come as now surprise that publishing behemoths […]

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Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 5, 2012

In 2008, under bipartisan pressure from Congress to ensure that all Americans would be able to access the results of taxpayer-funded biomedical research, the US National Institutes of Health instituted a Public Access Policy: The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to […]

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Stop the presses! H5N1 Frankenflu is going to kill us all!

By Michael Eisen | Published: December 23, 2011

I have watched the escalating hysteria about recent NIH-funded experiments to humanize H5N1 influenze (aka bird flu) with a mixture of amusement, horror and confusion. The amusement is born of the predictable hysteria that always infuses media coverage of research on lethal virus. The horror comes from the largely unchallenged move to censor publication of the […]

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Channeling George Wallace: Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau’s Disgraceful Doublespeak

By Michael Eisen | Published: November 11, 2011

One of the surest signs that someone is up to no good is when they take something in plain sight and try to tell you that it is something else. Take, for example, this video from this weeks Occupy Cal protest: I’ve watched this over and over. And every time I watch it, I see […]

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Berkeley’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Response to #occupycal

By Michael Eisen | Published: November 10, 2011

Yesterday, a group of UC Berkeley students, working under the banner of “Occupy Cal”, sought to set up an encampment in the middle of UC Berkeley’s campus to highlight the connection between the banking industry, the global financial crisis, and the financial plight of our public universities. I didn’t participate in the protests (it’s not my […]

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