[...] The discussion, held at U of T’s Trinity College, was the prelude to a fundraiser for Open Medicine, an open-access peer-reviewed journal that is itself part of a social movement to ensure access to scientific knowledge is free and content is widely disseminated (see MaRS blog last spring). [...]

“…It’s an interesting new model–an independent, open-access, medical journal with no pharma or medical device advertising and independent of a commercial publisher or medical assocation…”

It’s a new journal – but certainly not a “new model”. Other publishers of OA journals might feel quite offended by this claim. For example, JMIR (published in Toronto) exists since 1999, and is no less independent, and also “with no pharma or medical device advertising and independent of a commercial publisher or medical association”. And I am not even mentioning the other 1,000 open access journals which are using OJS. As open access and open peer-review become mainstream ideas, such priority claims sound increasingly ridiculous.

[...] At least in theory, the conduct of science must always be insulated from political interference. Scientists themselves work in institutions that are products of politics, economics and culture. As with any other complex question, there is probably no single answer, rather an interplay of pure and applied research. See, for example, discussion about open access medicine and scientific information from a previous blog. [...]