The authors have chosen an unfortunate way of expressing themselves, to say the least. The evident fact is that published data is there for anyone to re-examin

The authors have chosen an unfortunate way of expressing themselves, to say the least. The evident fact is that published data is there for anyone to re-examine as they wish, however I believe that the authors are referring to unpublished data and archived materials. In the latter case, I would agree that potential users of these resources should not be able to demand access without acknowledging and explicitly collaborating with the "owners" of said resources. A free-for-all access to unpublished data and archived materials would be a recipe for chaos and certainly would result in wasting rare samples and increased pollution of the literature with poorly performed studies. On the other hand, the guardians of these resources should not be able to deny access to said resources by qualified researchers.