Sir,
We read with great interest the letter by Ghosh and Murali, in which they comment on our Editorial in the March 2003 issue of NDT. We certainly agree that the availability online of editorial features, scientific articles, clinical reports and educational features is a major goal for all medical science journals. We wish, however, to caution their enthusiasm. Whilst all articles are free to anyone within not-for-profit institutes in developing countries, in developed countries articles appearing in NDT issues are immediately and freely available to subscribers only, with the exception of some selected editorial comments which can be accessed free on the web. It is only after 2 years have elapsed that the full version of all articles becomes freely available to all non-subscribers. Of course, non-subscribers may access full texts of any article online, by paying a fee per article. This policy has been chosen by necessity, in order to keep the journal in financial balance. Unfortunately, financial sources other than those coming from subscriptions would not be sufficient to keep the journal in funds. As pointed out in our editorial report in the January 2003 issue, the European Renal Association (ERA) has, however, made a major effort recently in setting up an online journal (NDT-Educational), which provides essentially recent information on important advances in the broad field of nephrology, and also different types of educational features.
Finally, concerning full text on the net (FUTON) bias, mentioned by Ghosh and Murali, it is true that we are all exposed to biased reading in one way or another, depending on the accessibility and availability of sources which we have decided to consult on a regular basis.