I hope this helps…
I excerpted part of the email as a question to chat [ChatGPT] and I will give you a chat response and I will give you the question that I asked to begin with….
The question I asked chat (chatgpt and I have been friends since January 2024) and I don’t exactly understand what level of access you have to chat… I have a basic account:
1) my question to chat based on your last email:
One of my colleagues made the following statement, but I was wondering if you had any insights or could answer the question with reference to published literature… for example… is there a published paper that proves open access literature helped save a patient or helped treat a patient?
It would be fine to have a body of work that is open access to influence policy in a way that saved lives— that would be an appropriate reference as well: here is the original response that I am asking you to consider an answer answering this question—-
“However, to date we have been unable to identify a single example of how access to the full text of a research paper saved a life, or even contributed directly to clinical decision-making. We asked ChatGPT, who could not identify an example either.”
2) here is the reply:
Here’s your response with formal references for each claim/statement:
Short answer: yes — there are published, citable examples where open-access (OA) research directly informed clinical decisions and, at population scale, saved lives.
A few high-signal cases you can reference:
#1: The first widely used COVID 19 (SARS-CoV-2) PCR protocol was published OA in Eurosurveillance on 23 Jan 2020 (Victor M. Corman et al.). Labs worldwide stood up diagnostic testing using that paper’s primers/protocols—core to triage, isolation, and care.
#2: The RECOVERY trial “dexamethasone” result was released OA as a medRxiv preprint on 22 Jun 2020. Multiple studies document immediate practice change and associated mortality reduction after the OA preprint emerged (with later peer-review confirming the effect).
o Example impact documentation: an interrupted-time-series analysis found an “abrupt increase in dexamethasone use and an associated decrease in mortality” after RECOVERY’s release; a Japanese nationwide analysis shows steroid prescribing pivoting specifically to dexamethasone once guidance incorporated the (OA-circulating) RECOVERY result.
#3: COVID guideline pipelines that were fully OA (for example, rapid recommendations in The BMJ; national guidance updates) show measurable prescribing shifts once OA recommendations cited the RECOVERY preprint/journal article—again underscoring that open, immediately accessible evidence changed treatment at scale. The Japanese study noted dexamethasone prescriptions rose from ~2.5 % to ~35.2 % after week 29 (July 2020) when it was formally included in guidance.
#4: Beyond single drugs, there’s a peer-reviewed synthesis arguing (with case documentation) that open science / OA “saves lives” in outbreaks by accelerating methods, data and guidelines—the COVID pandemic is the clearest modern proof-of-concept.
#5 (health-system access): While it’s harder to tie one patient’s survival to one OA PDF, programmes built to widen OA access for clinicians—e.g., HINARI Access to Research in Health / Research4Life—have peer-reviewed evaluations showing clinicians and institutions used the newly accessible literature in care and training across low- and middle-income countries, helping close the “know-do” gap that underpins preventable mortality.
What this means for your colleague’s claim
It’s understandable that “this one OA paper saved this one named patient” case-reports are rare—clinicians don’t usually document access modality in case notes. But there are now well-cited, peer-reviewed analyses showing that OA outputs (methods papers, preprints, and guidelines) triggered rapid changes in clinical decisions and were associated with reduced mortality at scale. That directly contradicts the assertion that no example exists of full-text access contributing to decision-making or saving lives.
If you want a compact references list for rebuttal use these four anchors:
1. Corman VM, Landt O, Kaiser M, et al. Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR. Eurosurveillance. 2020 Jan 23;25(3):2000045. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.3.2000045.
2. Horby P, Landray MJ, RECOVERY Collaborative Group. Effect of dexamethasone in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 – Preliminary Report. medRxiv. 2020 Jun 22.doi:10.1101/2020.06.22.20137273.
3. Higuchi T, et al. The Japanese Guide affected the prescription of steroids for COVID-19 inpatients in Japan. BMC Public Health / pre-print. 2023. (Showed prescribing shift post-guidance).
4. Besançon L, Peiffer-Smadja N, Segalas C, et al. Open science saves lives: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2021;21(1):117. doi:10.1186/s12874-021-01304-y
HIFA Profile: David Cawthorpe is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, Canada. His professional interests include: Human Development, Developmental Psychopathology, and Delivery of low bandwidth medical education curriculum. cawthord AT ucalgary.ca