Chemical Reaction

Andrea Gawrylewski reports that an email from an "ACS insider," who insisted on anonymity, alleges that bonuses paid to executives of the American Chemical Society are tied to the profits of the publishing division and that this is why the society is opposing open-access publishing. In January, Nature revealed that the Association of American Publishers had hired PR crisis management guru Eric Dezenhall to devise a campaign against proposals for free public access to publicly funded scientific research, and that ACS had attended a briefing on the campaign. Rudy Baum, the editor-in-chief of Chemical & Engineering News -- an ACS publication -- "declined to say whether his bonuses were linked to publishing profits." However, former ACS staff told Gawrylewski that it was well known that senior managers' bonuses were linked to profitability. The chair of the ACS board of directors, Judith Benham, rejected the suggestion that the society's opposition to open access publishing was linked to executive compensation.