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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Campbell and colleagues¹ report that academic geneticists frequently withhold data from their colleagues. The authors' methods, however, allow only limited evaluation of current practices.

The authors' survey questions presume that data sharing can only take the form of a request from one scientist to another. The authors did not assess other types of data sharing, such as the use of data infrastructures. This issue is likely to be especially important in academic genetics, which is considered the most advanced field in terms of integration of informatics and databases in research, from data collection to submission at the moment of publication.² Furthermore, their sample was made up of researchers from institutions most heavily funded by the National Institutes of Health, which, along with the National Science Foundation, has a vigorous data-sharing policy,³ encouraging the use of public databases for mapping and sequencing data.⁴

It is unclear why . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Data Withholding in Academic Genetics: Evidence From a National Survey
Eric G. Campbell, Brian R. Clarridge, Manjusha Gokhale, Lauren Birenbaum, Stephen Hilgartner, Neil A. Holtzman, and David Blumenthal
JAMA. 2002;287(4):473-480.
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