The American Chemical Society (ACS) has called on Congress to shut down the NIH's PubChem , an open access database that links chemical information to biomedical research and clinical information. PubChem organizes facts from numerous public databases into a unified whole and is designed for use as a research tool that may lead to the development of new medications.
ACS has voiced concern that PubChem, a freely-accessible database, threatens the viability of the ACS's Chemical Abstracts Service, which charges a fee for access.
Additional information on the issues is available at the University of California's Scholarly Communication website .