Petition to Free Up Access to the Cochrane Library
Last month, the EU Alliance for the Dissemination of Evidence launched a petition to the European Commission, asking it to subsidize free online access for the Cochrane Library, at least within Europe. From the text:
We, the undersigned, petition the European Commission to finance EU Provision to the Cochrane Library free of charge for all citizens of the Member States of the European Union.
Independent and reliable information on the effectiveness of treatment options is vital if health care professionals, policy makers and patients are to make sound healthcare decisions.
The Cochrane Library is an electronic database that is updated four times a year and contains the world’s leading collection of comprehensive, up-to-date, independently reviewed, reliable information on effects of health technologies, whether these be drugs, surgical interventions or alternative medicines. The information is made available in the form of transparent high quality systematic reviews. Currently, the Cochrane Library contains more than 3,000 systematic reviews.
The Cochrane Library is produced by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international, independent, not-for-profit organization of more than 15,000 dedicated volunteers (health professionals, researchers and patients) whose aim is to improve healthcare decision-making globally, by producing systematic reviews of the evidence about the effects of healthcare interventions. As each review has a plain language summary, lay people are also able to benefit from the empowering information contained in the Cochrane Library….
Open Access News, January 24, 2008
