A new website from the National Institutes of Health may help you promote clinical trial participation. NIH Clinical Research Trials and You aims to educate patients and families about clinical trials, why they matter, and how to participate.
A section on The Basics answers questions like:
- What are clinical trials and why do people participate?
- What do I need to know if I am thinking about participating?
Volunteer Stories offers short videos of trial participants speaking about their experiences. Educational Resources links to information in Spanish, and special information about the participation of children and the elderly.
Information for healthcare providers includes:
- How to Refer Your Patient
For help with patient education or any other information need, please contact
Hahnemann Library at 215-762-7184 or Queen Lane Library at 215-991-8740.
An initiative of the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, the Neuroscience Information Framework is a dynamic inventory of Web-based neuroscience resources. It includes registered datasets and a literature collection indexing the contents of a core set of neuroscience journals. Webinars on use of NIF resources are provided, and a news board highlights neurosciences-related news stories from journals, newspapers and other sources.
The Neuroscience Information Framework has been added to the list of databases on the Libraries’ website, available through the alphabetic list, and the lists of recommended databases for Health Sciences and Medical/Biomedical Sciences.
The AAMC has sent out a message to the Medical Education community, requesting that faculty, students, residents and researchers urge their members of congress to support increased funding the NIH.
Your action on this issue is extremely important. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee approved its subcommittee allocations for the FY 2010 spending bills. These allocations set the limit on the amount of funding each subcommittee has for the programs under its jurisdiction.
The Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, which includes NIH, received an allocation of $160.7 billion. While this amount represents an increase of nearly $8.9 billion (5.8 percent) over the subcommittee’s funding level in the FY 2009 omnibus (P.L. 111-8), it falls approximately $50 million short of the President’s request. You will recall that the President’s budget calls for $30.759 billion for the NIH through the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, a $442 million (1.5 percent) increase over the FY 2009 appropriated level of $30.317 billion.This number excludes funding provided to NIH through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, P.L. 111-5).
The committee also announced the Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee tentatively is scheduled to mark up its bill July 8, followed by full Appropriations Committee action July 14, and House floor consideration July 22 through July 24. This means there is only three weeks to get messages of support for increasing NIH’s budget to Congress before the House subcommittee considers its bill. Given the competing priorities within this bill and an allocation that barely matches the President’s budget, it is critical that the medical research community deliver an emphatic message of support for increased NIH funding.
Further information about NIH funding and this initiative from the AAMC, including sample letters, can be found at http://www.researchmeanshope.org/.
Library Journal reports that Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), chair of the congressional subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, has announced that no further action will be taken on the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act until next year. Copyright experts including Villanova law professor Michael Carroll and Peter Suber, author of Open Access News blog have commented on some of the implications of the proposed bill.
Library Journal reports today that on September 11th, the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property of the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a bill that could seriously impact the National Institutes of Health’s public access mandate. Tenatively titled “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” the bill responds to claims by publishers that NIH’s policy encroaches on their ability to manage copyrighted content.
NIH’s Public Access Policy, which is strongly supported by the library community, ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. In July 2008 alone, nearly 4,000 articles were submitted to PubMed Central in accordance with the mandate.
To read more from Library Journal, please see: http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6594400.html?nid=2673#news1.
The Department of Bioethics at the NIH is offering a course on the ethical and regulatory aspects of clinical research. The course will be held September 24- November 12, 2008 at NIH’s Bethesda campus. Webcast lectures and podcast lectures will also be available, although CCME credits are available only to those who attend in person. Registration is required only for those that plan on attending in person.
This course is offered to anyone interested or involved in clinical research involving human subjects. The target audience . . . includes multiple disciplines including, but not restricted to, physicians, psychologists, nurses, social workers, administrative staff, students, and others. There are no background requirements in terms of education, knowledge, or experience, just an interest in clinical research with human subjects. This course is readily accessible to the non-medically trained as well as to those in the field of scientific research. As a rule, background education includes a mix of MD, PhD, RN, MPH, SW, MPH, and BA/BS.
Further information, including the agenda and list of speakers is available at: http://www.bioethics.nih.gov/hsrc/index.shtml
NIH’s Public Access Policy, mandating that all articles arising from NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication, has been a boon for researchers, medical practitioners and public, making publicly-funded research accessible to all. But it has been a source of confusion for authors, who may encounter conflicts between the NIH mandate and the stipulations of publishers’ contracts.
Ben Grillot of the Association of Research Libraries has published a report titled “PubMed Central Deposit and Author Rights”, providing guidelines on how authors can balance NIH requirements and publishers’ restrictions. The report is available for free on the ARL website at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/grillot-pubmed.pdf.
