Dear Editors,
Most of you are already familiar with the controversy over public access to federally-funded research data. In a nutshell, Senator Shelby inserted a two-sentence requirement into PL 105-277 last fall that permits public access to federally-funded research data under FOIA guidelines.

We all support the Senator Shelby requirement, and submitted comments early this year when the OMB issued its proposed regulations. Sunshine is a disinfectant, and public access to such data minimizes corruption, mistakes, and fraud concerning such data.

Dear Editors,
I found this initiative very interesting. It parallels efforts by me and others within the American Society of Criminology to include in its new Code of Ethics the requirement that researchers make their data available to other scholars once findings are published.

Do you have a copy of the Congressional Shelby Provision that you mentioned? If so, could you send me a copy, or if not, direct me to where I could find one? Thanks.

Prof. Gary Kleck
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL

Dear Dr. Faria,
A gold star for the Medical Sentinel's new policy requiring public access to supporting data. I appreciate your policy that is an obvious requirement to maintain journalistic credibility and the scientific method. Thank you.

Sebastian
Research Director,
99-X Radio / WNNX-FM
Atlanta, GA

Correspondence originally published in the Medical Sentinel 1999;4(6);193-198. Copyright©1999 Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

Dear Editor,
My most sincere congratulations to you and the Medical Sentinel for the promulgation of a courageous, open, intellectually honest and "disarming" policy.

I challenge any and all other medical and scientific journals to adopt this cutting edge policy...one that can only foster intellectual integrity and blaze the trail for the eventual elimination of the junk science that litters the scientific landscape and pollutes the well of honest, scientific discourse.

Dear Editor,
I was extremely pleased and impressed that your publication has adopted "public review" as a way of forcing the real truth out in medical and other scientific research. It has long been time for bogus, government-sponsored results to be challenged. As an officer of a leading Republican organization in Georgia, newspaper publisher, and concerned citizen let me know how I can help you further....

Jim Williamson
Smyrna, GA

The following press release was aired on August 30, 1999:

• Login or register to post comments
• Read more