In the wake of SOPA and PIPA’s defeat, a new online boycott, some 8,209 researchers strong, is beginning to gain momentum.  The protest focuses on Elsevier, a publisher of renowned scientific journals such as Cell or The Lancet, whose aggressive business tactics have for years have been a thorn in scientists’ sides.

The main problem for scientists (or anyone interested in reading articles from the journals) is that in order to have access to the whole text- and not just the abstract or the first few paragraphs- they must pay upwards of forty dollars to rent them for a few days. They can also pay a few hundred dollars to own a copy.

In addition, many scientific articles in the U.S. are produced by government-sponsored organizations, which means that while taxpayers’ money funded the experiments, they do not get to see the articles without paying more money. This includes even the authors of the article.

While these outrageous prices are not anything new, the cause of the protest, a new bill titled the Research Works Act (RWA), is relatively recent.  The bill, designed to negate the effects of the Open Access Policy created by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008, that allowed the public to view any article that is the result of NIH-funded research, was submitted to Congress last December.

A little more than a month later, Timothy Gowers, a mathematics professor at Cambridge University, posted a short article about his difficulties with Elsevier and his frustrations at the RWA.  A few days later, he launched the boycott, calling on colleagues to boycott Elsevier.

While there are cheaper, alternative journals researchers can publish their work in, such as those run by professional societies, these do not come without their own can of worms.

Patricia Kelley, a Geology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, says, “Societies… tend to require authors to pay charges to publish their articles.  For instance, Journal of Paleontology editorial policy states:  ‘Authors are asked to pay as much page charges as they can for articles of all lengths. Paying extra page charges is mandatory for articles that run 26-40 pages.’”

Elsevier, despite costly subscription, can help get researchers around these problems.  “The benefits to the authors are that publication is rapid and they don’t require page charges,” says Kelley.

Some previously “high cost” journals are beginning to make the switch.  The Open Directory keeps a list of journals that have made the jump and are now free-for-all, or are trying out new payment methods. Elsevier, though, still stands strong.  Despite its aggressive moneymaking tactics, the benefits of publishing through the company are obvious.

Says Kelley, “So authors find themselves in a tight spot.  Do we pay a non-for-profit journal to publish our work, or do we publish for free with a company such as Elsevier?”

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An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services.

This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.

Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.

The IJHS article is available at http://www.radiation.org.

Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores.  Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S.  The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water):  Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200);Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).

Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, said: ”This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal.  It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world.  Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation.”

Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters.

Internist and toxicologist Janette Sherman, MD, said: ”Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.”

Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor, Western Michigan University, and contributing editor of ”Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” published by the NY Academy of Sciences in 2009, and author of ”Chemical Exposure and Disease and Life’s Delicate Balance – Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S.  In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. are about 14,000.

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