Thanks!

Thanks to Denish, Gaurav and Charusheila for their prompt generosity in forwarding me full text articles from the JAMA. Have had a busy week away from home with some handicap in time management and internet access.

I think I should make a mention about Gaurav's forwarded article.
I have always wondered where Google makes all its money from if its services are all free.Its ads are not so obscenely in your face as indiatimes or MSN, nor do they offer premium services or cornball upgrades.Some of my more 'connected'friends might be able to enlighten me on that I am sure.If Reed Elsevier wants to make access free in return for some Viagrotesque ads that we have to loop across then frankly I don't mind that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/business/media/10journal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


A flip side would be that common folk ( they don't come common in the USA really!) who otherwise might have no incentive to pay and purchase access to a journal might end up reading about adverse effects of drug trials or how so much of medical diagnosis is often serependitious or even misdirected and put one and one together to get five in their own math of it. (Its funny, I came to know of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis through a TV ad of a medical negligence claims attorney before I read about it in medical literature!!God knows what his math is or what he is educating his clients about!!!)We know how statistics can present a totally distorted picture when provocatively disguised- Vioxx, WHI...usw.Ratios and differences don't mean the same thing right!?!
But I guess this is a welcome move anyways...lets wait and see what OncoSTAT's experience is.Until that hope and pray that BMJ doesn't follow the NEJM way.

One more point: in developed countries, access to an aticle might mean reproducing it in references to another later article. In developed countries many a times it is knowledge acquisition- thats my BJ experience. You are not being fair charging for that -educational institutions or students, make it free/ heavily subsidised.Making access free after 6 months clearly defeats the purpose of information dissemination.Its selfishness at its obscene best.

And regarding HINARI....

http://www.who.int/hinari/eligibility/en/index.html



I guess NEJM got their inspiration from them. They use per capita GNP to decide who to give free access to. There are flaws to this approach in that it assumes this figure extrapolates to health care, it ignores inflation and local currency appreciation.
In India's case -per capita income gets skewed as much by the 1 billion denominator figure as it does by the ridiculous amounts that MBA graduates from SP Jain or IIMs make.And the fact that people making this money are largely professionals employed in private companies and of a younger generation. Health insurance is largely non existent outside organised sector employment,hospitals are considering scrapping CGHS care provider status due to onstant bickering on the amount that they get paid for it; tertiary health care institutes are largely government run, underfunded behemoths grovelling under their own weight of responsibilities and the people they cater to are from the other extreme of the spectrum, and sadly the majority.

Statistics are like a bikini....so said the Surd.
Beneath them is the truth thats never heard.