An Unhealthy Bond:

Embargoes and the Ingelfinger Rule

Ivan Oransky, MDExecutive Editor, Reuters Health

Blogger, Embargo Watchhttp://embargowatch.wordpress.com

ivan-oransky@erols.com

Science Writers in New YorkSeptember 26, 2011

Why Journals Say They Embargo

NEJM, a typical policy:

The Journal embargo policy is designed primarily to

ensure that physician subscribers have their copy of

the Journal at about the same time their patients hear

about new research through the news media. It also

gives the media time to learn about a topic, gather

relevant information, and interview authors and other

experts so they can accurately report complex

research findings.

“…important science news often is more a

produce of news management by the journals

that publish peer-review research, than of any

one reporter’s special expertise or investigative

energy”

The Criticism

– Robert Lee Hotz, quoted in Kiernan V.,

Embargoed Science (2006), p 77

What’s In It For Journals?

“…coverage [by the New York Times] of JAMA

increased by 50 percent after the journal’s publication

date was shifted from Friday to Wednesday in April

1990.”

– Kiernan V.

Embargoes and the New York Times'

coverage of the Journal of the American

Medical Association.

Science Communication, June 1998

American Geophysical Union’s unembargoed

journals get nearly no coverage in newspapers,

compared to Science and Nature, which appear

nearly every week.

Do Embargoes Mean More Coverage?

– Harvey Leifert, quoted in Kiernan, pp 104-105

Does Coverage Mean More Citations?

Articles… covered by the Times received a disproportionate

number of scientific citations in each of the 10 years after

the… articles appeared.

The effect was strongest in the first year after publication,

when… articles publicized by the Times received 72.8% more

scientific citations than control articles.

This effect was not present for articles published during the

strike; articles covered by the Times during this period were

no more likely to be cited than those not covered.

– Phillips D et al. Importance of the lay press

in the transmission of medical knowledge to

the scientific community. NEJM 1991

How Do Embargoes Change Coverage?

“The often slavish reliance on a few journals implies

taking science as a given, simply reporting on work

that is already done. With a supply of easy stories

guaranteed, there is little incentive to ask about

issues like the motivation underlying funding or who

creates the agenda for doing the research.”

– John Turney, quoted in Kiernan, p 106

• Time to digest findings

• Time to find outside comments

• More time for reporters should mean

greater accuracy

Review: Why Journals Say They Embargo

Are their policies consistent with

these reasons?

• The Short Embargo Parade

• Unusual Embargo Policies

• Freely Available But Embargoed

• It’s Not Just Journals

• When Studies Aren’t Available at Embargo

• Do Journals Sanction Embargo Breakers?

The Short Embargo Parade

American Journal of Gastroenterology22:58 on May 11, 2010

The Short Embargo Parade

The Lancet9:19, March 31, 2010

The Short Embargo Parade

Journal of Clinical Oncology2:41, May 24, 2010

The Short Embargo Parade

The New England Journal of Medicine0:49, on September 15, 2010

Is It Really About Accuracy?

Does 49 minutes give reporters enough time to do a

good job?

How do you measure accuracy, anyway?

“Proponents of the embargo system maintain that

embargoes promote journalistic accuracy, but this

claim is essentially tautological, because the

embargo system reflects and fosters a definition of

accuracy promoted by the scientific establishment.”

– Kiernan V. Embargoed Science,

University of Illinois Press, 2006

Unusual Embargo Policies

Unusual Embargo Policies

University of LeedsEmbargoed a study that was already

published in Geophysical Review Letters

Unusual Embargo Policies

The Lancet7:01 p.m. Eastern – unless you’re on

the East Coast of the U.S., in which case it’s 6:30 p.m., since nightly network

newscasts start then

Unusual Embargo Policies

American Journal of Preventive MedicineAn embargo that lifts 26 different times,

since it’s at news outlets’ local times

Freely Available But Embargoed

Freely Available But Embargoed

Honorable Mention

It’s Not Just Journals

When Studies Aren’t Available at Embargo

More Inconsistency: Do Journals

Sanction Embargo Breakers?

Not often.

In Embargo Watch experience, somewhere between 10% and 20% of the time.

Two People Who Were Punished

But Wait, We Can Haz Change!

Some Societies Agree:

They Don’t Make Sense

FDA Reverses Itself

Kiernan’s Vision

It is a rough-and-tumble vision of the journalistic future,

one lacking the gentility that now pervades journalism

about science and medicine.

But the public interest, not the interest of the scientific

and medical establishment, should be the uppermost

concern of science and medical journalists – and, in

fact, of institutional science and medicine.

The embargo should go.

- Page 140

Even Without Embargoes, We’d Still

Have Ingelfinger

The Letter of the Rule: Nature

• Nature does not wish to hinder communication

between scientists. For that reason, different

embargo guidelines apply to work that has been

discussed at a conference or displayed on a preprint

server and picked up by the media as a result.

(Neither conference presentations nor posting on

recognized preprint servers constitute prior

publication.)

-more-

The Letter of the Rule: Nature

• Our guidelines for authors and potential authors in

such circumstances are clear-cut in principle:

communicate with other researchers as much as you

wish, but do not encourage premature publication by

discussion with the press (beyond a formal

presentation, if at a conference).

-more-

The Letter of the Rule: Nature

• This advice may jar with those (including most

researchers and all journalists) who see the freedom

of information as a good thing. But it embodies a

longer-term view: that publication in a peer-reviewed

journal is the appropriate culmination of any piece of

original research, and an essential prerequisite for

public discussion.

From

http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/policy/embargo.html

Ingelfinger in Practice

Ingelfinger in Practice

Ingelfinger in Practice

Ingelfinger in Practice

Or Should Journalists

Just Give Them Up?

What if we just got rid of the Ingelfinger Rule?

Is it safe to write about research that isn’t

peer-reviewed?

It’s About Control

Suggested Embargo Policy Text

Our embargo policy is in place to ensure as much coverage of

research [in our journal/by our society’s members] as possible.

This may divert attention from other important issues in

science and medicine. Provided we have a reasonable interval

between the release of material and the embargo time, it may

also help reporters do a better job covering these studies.

However, policies that bar pre-publication publicity of

scientists’ work can also have a chilling effect on the spread of

scientific knowledge.