Editors' Commentary: On the shoulders of hoarders

The half-hearted "clarification" to a Jan. 21 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine did nothing to address the journal's elitist and regressive attitude to data sharing and transparency in science. The values embodied and solutions proposed in the original editorial, which launched a Twitterstorm of indignation, would serve the community badly and would do more to hold back science than accelerate it, which is unquestionably bad for the patients whose collective sacrifice NEJM says must be honored.

In a nutshell, NEJM Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Drazen and Deputy Editor Dan Longo argue that clinical researchers should not be required to disclose their assumptions to data scientists or other researchers who want to build on the original research. Moreover, the NEJM editors cite arguments that these follow-on researchers are "parasites" who accumulate personal and financial gain on the backs of the original data gatherers...