Recent issue of 'Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics' has an interesting editorial. Denying open access to published health-care research: WHO has the password? An 'extract' of the editorial is as below. The World Health Organization (WHO) has demonstrated exemplary foresight in highlighting that access to biomedical journals is a critical issue in developing countries and one of the many obstacles to improving health. In the year 2002, WHO initiated a unique program, HINARI, with the support of several major publishers. HINARI is presently providing open access to over 3,750 journal titles to institutions in 113 developing countries. Institutions in countries with GNI per capita (World Bank figures, 2006) below $1,000 are eligible for free access and those in countries with GNI per capita between $1,000 and $3,000 can gain access by paying a very reasonable fee of $1,000 per year / institution. However, clinicians and researchers in some very populous developing countries like India have been greatly disappointed that they are not considered eligible for HINARI. The GNI per capita as per the World Bank 2006 figures for some of the countries that have been excluded by HINARI, range from $770 for Pakistan, $820 for India, $1420 for Indonesia and $2010 for China. The HINARI website acknowledges that some developing countries with per capita GNP of less than US$3,000 have been denied open access through HINARI as 'the publishers participating in HINARI have not, for the time being, extended their offer to countries where they have significant levels of existing subscriptions and, in some cases, local sales staff.' It is unfortunate that business interests of western publishers has taken away the gloss from HINARI by denying open access to clinicians catering to the health needs of half of the world population. While the long list of 113 countries covered under HINARI looks very impressive, most of these are very small countries, with the combined population of countries in Band 1 being 1.2 billion; and in Band 2 as 0.3 billion. In contrast, the total population of China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, the 4 most populous countries with a per capita GNI of less than $3000 but excluded from HINARI is 3 billion. Full text of the editorial is available at http://www.cancerjournal.net/article.asp?issn=0973-1482;year=2007;volume=3;i... Interestingly, who support or oppose this call and has any suggestions are free to send their email response to the editorial of the journal site. Satish S Munnolli Librarian Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) Sector 22, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai 410 210 Ph: +91 22 2740 5026 Email: smunnolli@actrec.gov.in -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.