Here is great news for users of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) PubMed Central literature database. Beginning in April of this year, the NIH introduced its long-awaited Public Access Policy regarding publications based on NIH-funded research.1 The new policy states that all investigators funded by the NIH must submit to the National Library of Medicine's (NLM's) PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscript, upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Previously voluntary, the Public Access Policy is now mandatory for all research either partially or wholly funded by the NIH. Making these peer-reviewed manuscripts available to the public will help advance science and improve human health.

PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/) is the NLM's digital archive of full-text, peer-reviewed journal articles. Its content is accessible without cost to the public and integrates with other databases. Each year, approximately 80,000 articles are published, which arise from NIH funds. And, the trend toward making the results of government research more accessible to the public continues. Beginning in September of this year, the US Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 will require that information about clinical trials and the results of these trials be made publicly available on the Internet through an expanded registry and results data bank.2

References