Do we need Robin Hood to improve our access to medical research? | Marion R. Sills, MD, MPH

"A graduate student from Kazakhstan named Alexandra Elbakyan  went into hiding after illegally providing free online access to just about every scientific paper ever published, on topics ranging from acoustics to zymology. Paraphrasing part of the United Nations Charter, Ms. Elbakyan said, 'Everyone has the right to freely share in scientific advancement and its benefits.' Her file-sharing website is here: Sci-Hub. A New York Times piece on her actions states: 'Her protest against scholarly journals’ paywalls has earned her rock-star status among advocates for open access, and has shined a light on how scientific findings that could inform personal and public policy decisions on matters as consequential as health care, economics and the environment are often prohibitively expensive to read and impossible to aggregate and datamine.' In response to the suit Elsevier filed against her, supported by industry amicus briefs,  Ms. Elbakyan wrote a letter to the judge pointing out that Elsevier, like other medical journal publishers, pays nothing to acquire researchers’ studies or for the volunteer peer reviewers or editors, while charging high fees to researchers and the public (who pay for some of the research with tax dollars) to be able to read the articles ..."