NIH’s PubChem Database is Threatened by ACS Claim
A Letter distributed by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition):
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is calling on Congress to unreasonably restrict PubChem, a freely accessible database that connects chemical information with facts in numerous public databases. It is a critical component of NIH’s Molecular Libraries Initiative, which in turn is a key element of the NIH strategic "roadmap" to speed new medical treatments and improve healthcare.
ACS claims that PubChem competes with its Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). In reality, PubChem and the Chemical Abstracts Service databases are complementary, not duplicative. If ACS succeeds in eliminating PubChem, scientific progress will be throttled. The University of California Office of Scholarly Communication has created a page laying out the facts of this issue (http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acs_pubchem.html). This page collects the position statements, the major documents, and a list of actions that can support PubChem. Among these documents is an open letter in support of PubChem from Peter Murray-Rust of the Cambridge University (UK) Chemistry Department and Henry Rzepa, Professor of Chemistry at the UK’s Imperial College. The letter states in part that “In our laboratories we are using PubChem for systematic research and are enhancing its value by publishing the results to the world….By sharing resources freely we detect and correct errors, and encourage innovation in the way we access information. Many developments in bioscience and healthcare come not from the wet laboratory, but through computational knowledge-driven methods. PubChem represents the start of such a process in chemical bioscience.” (The letter is available in full at https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1961.html).
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has also spoken out in support of PubChem. In a letter to Rep. Ralph Regula, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Related Agencies, the AAMC urged Congress to continue support for this vital resource.
