According to the managing editor of the Journal of Cell Biology, the magazine is not averse to allowing free content through its website but does not want to be searchable through Pub-Med central.

"We have made our content free after six months on our own website but we don't want to give the content to the proposed government site," Michael Rossner, Managing Editor of the Journal of Cell Biology said.

Science Magazine has also published manifestos against the proposed government site, though it too has granted free access to back issues six months after their publication date.

However, Kirschner said the resistance to a government-run search engine was unfounded. There would be no direct oversight of journal content, and the search engine would simply be based around an already well-known scientific resource, Pub-Med Central.

"Basically the response has been to characterize this as a 'Do you trust the government with running this repository?'" Kirschner said. "We are not saying [journals] can't have their separate sites, but that their information be connected to the National Library of Medicine."

Kirschner, Brown and others are drafting a response to the latest Science Magazine editorial against the search engine but they note that many journals have moved more content online, proving their point that journals will not be hurt by free archival access.

"Making information available for free to the world should not undermine a journal's economic integrity," Kirschner said.