Sci-Hub and medical practice: an ethical dilemma in Peru

What is it about?

Sci-Hub is a pirate repository of scientific papers launched in 2011, and currently hosts more than 46 million articles. Thousands of people use this repository every day to access information, reaching more than 200 000 daily downloads of scientific articles that they would otherwise have to buy.1 We present a dilemma in the form of Dr J, a Peruvian physician who is evaluating a patient with several infectious and chronic comorbidities—an experience not uncommon to clinicians in countries, like Peru, that experience the double burden of disease. Dr J believes he needs to review recent medical literature to decide the best management of this complex patient. However, his sources are scarce: his medical books are old and outdated; the medical conferences that he has attended in his country have not delved into this subject (and have serious conflicts of interest for being largely funded by players in the pharmaceutical industry); he does not have institutional access to the scientific papers he needs; and he does not have funding to cover the cost of the subscriptions.

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