© Natural Society
I recently reported on how a lobby group was formed in Australia that aims to take out all alternative medicine degrees from universities. Unfortunate news indeed, but there is a much more pressing matter that would negatively impact all natural and alternative health educators. Congress is trying to restrict your access to research so that you will only learn what the mainstream medical establishment wants you to learn. This legislation seeks to limit access to research that is paid for with your tax dollars, and could virtually censor your right to health research - that is until we find a way to rise above.
A new bill called the Research Works Act (HR 3699) was introduced thanks to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) just before the end of 2011. The bill would prevent agencies like the National Institutes of Health from allowing private-sector research work to be distributed online without consent from the publisher and study authors beforehand, even if the funding is coming from your tax dollars. This new bill would institute something completely opposite of what the National Institutes of Health required back in 2008, where all federally funded research publications were to be openly available.
Partnering with the AAP on this matter, publisher Elsevier - the Reed Elsevier Publishing Group which publishes about 2,000 journals and nearly 20,000 books and major reference works - made campaign contributions to the two members of congress who were persuaded to introduce this bill. The price for 2 members of congress to pass a bill? Evidently it only costs $10,500.
