The reality of closed access

Here’s a typical example of getting information from the literature. Assume I don’t belong to a rich University
and I need to find out about cystic fibrosis. I can go to the splendid Pubmed (MEDLINE)

PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources.

I type in “cystic fibrosis” and find 27497 articles! Here’s #7:

7: Dellon EP, Leigh MW, Yankaskas JR, Noah TL. Related Articles, Links
Abstract Effects of lung transplantation on inpatient end of life care in cystic fibrosis.
J Cyst Fibros. 2007 May 2; [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 17481967 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

<!– //analyze cookie to see if client wants automatic redirection, then do it if ( getCookie(WKCookieName)=='ovid' || getCookie(WKCookieName)=='lww' ) { //user has WKRedirect cookie, expose redirect message document.write('.Redir {display: block;}’) //tracking , based on user having cookie and what product redirected document.write(‘‘); //initiate auto redirect ID = setTimeout(“redirectSelection(getCookie(WKCookieName));”,redirectDelay); } else { //make visible main WK product selection text and links document.write(‘.forkcontainer{visibility: visible;}’); document.write(‘‘);//tracking , user no cookie condition } // –> Sounds important, let’s read it First we get the abstract (the summary)

[title and authors omitted]

BACKGROUND: The impact of lung transplantation on end of life care in cystic fibrosis (CF) has not been widely investigated. METHODS: Information about end of life care was collected from records of all patients who died in our hospital from complications of CF between 1995 and 2005. Transplant and non-transplant patients were compared. RESULTS: Of 38 patients who died, 20 (53%) had received or were awaiting lung transplantation (“transplant” group), and 18 (47%) were not referred, declined transplant, or were removed from the waiting list (“non-transplant”). Transplant patients were more likely than non-transplant patients to die in the intensive care unit (17 (85%) versus 9 (50%); P=0.04). 16 (80%) transplant patients remained intubated at or shortly before death, versus 7 (39%) non-transplant patients (P=0.02). Do-not-resuscitate orders were written later for transplant patients; 12 (60%) on the day of death versus 5 (28%) in non-transplant patients (P=0.02). Transplant patients were less likely to participate in this decision. Alternatives to hospital death were rarely discussed. CONCLUSIONS: Receiving or awaiting lung transplantation affords more aggressive inpatient end of life care. Despite the chronic nature of CF and knowledge of a shortened life span, discussions about terminal care are often delayed until patients themselves are unable to participate.

But I want to know more… maybe the data need re-interpreting … so let’s read the whole article …

Access Online Article
Effects of lung transplantation on inpatient end of life care in cystic fibrosis
Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 3 May 2007,
Elisabeth P. Dellon, Margaret W. Leigh, James R. Yankaskas and Terry L. Noah View Abstract
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… and it will cost you 30 USD…
So that – I hope – is an accurate depiction of the difference between Open (PubMed) and Closed (Journal of Cystic Fibrosis)

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One Response to The reality of closed access

  1. Pingback: Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics, Cambridge - petermr’s blog » Blog Archive » WWW 2007 Presentation

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