Rating medical journals by their importance to clinicians
A study in BMC Medicine rates 170 healthcare titles according to the number of clinically useful articles that they published.

HIV-1 Vif: Multiple ways to outsmart the body's defences?
The way that HIV disables the body's natural defences against retroviruses is still not well understood, according to new research published in the Open Access journal Retrovirology.

Open Access questionnaire
Key Perspectives Ltd are carrying out a survey about Open Access publishing and self-archiving. The results will be used to "inform universities, research funders and scholars themselves of the state of play and how Open Access is progressing". Please share your views by completing their online questionnaire. All responses will be treated as confidential and you may opt to remain anonymous.

Use them, read them, cite them, and... submit to them.
To submit a manuscript or for more information, visit: www.biomedcentral.com/manuscript

Open Access experiment from Nature Publishing Group
The Nature Publishing Group, in partnership with the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), has announced that it is to launch a new online journal run on an Open Access model.

Calls for mandatory clinical trials registration
Medical editors, politicians and the pharmaceutical industry are adding their voices to the debate about access to information concerning clinical trials.

The smokescreen of copyright
The New England Journal of Medicine's support for Elias Zerhouni's proposal, Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information, is commendable. However, the recent editorial on this topic (NEJM, September 23, 2004) makes unfounded statements relating to copyright that deserve correction.

Voice your support
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced a 60-day consultation on its plan to enhance public access to the research it funds. The plan proposes that NIH-funded research be deposited in PubMed Central, its open electronic repository, within six months of publication.You can voice your support for the proposal by submitting your comments on the NIH website.

BioMed Central's open letter to the NIH
BioMed Central's open letter to NIH Director Elias Zerhouni voices support for the NIH's proposal to provide open access to publicly funded research.