Research Findings Should be Made Accessible to Public

Research Findings Should be Made Accessible to Public

"Remember Lorenzo? The little kid with the wasting genetic disease in the 1992 movie "Lorenzo's Oil"?

After the doctors had given up on him, Lorenzo's dad, played by Nick Nolte, went on a tear. He researched everything known about his son's disease and came up with a treatment.

Today, Lorenzo's dad would probably have to live near a major university with a giant subscription budget to access the latest research.

Here's one example. It costs about as much to buy a year's subscription to the Journal of Applied Polymer Science as a 2005 Toyota Corolla. The price of each approaches $13,000...

Scholarship hasn't always been so pricey. Scholars used to write up their discoveries and give them to scholarly societies. The societies published them for other scholars to see."