Circulation breaks its own embargo on non-nutritive sweeteners statement, forcing early lift
The American Heart Association (AHA) has lifted the embargo early on a statement in one of their journals after learning that the journal, Circulation, had published the paper and tweeted about it before the 4 p.m. Eastern embargo was scheduled to lift.
Larry Husten, at CardioBrief, broke the news about the early lift in his post on the statement, “Nonnutritive Sweeteners: Current Use and Health Perspectives : A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association.”
The AHA joins an august group of organizations who have broken their own embargoes: The journal Neurology (twice), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and the Archives of Dermatology. As far as we know, none of them have faced sanctions, unlike reporters who break AHA embargoes.
Update, 2:40 p.m. Eastern, 7/9/12: The AHA explains what happened in an email to Embargo Watch:
The error was the AHA Communications staff’s fault, not the journal’s, that the wrong embargo time was posted on the release. Our weekly journal releases publish online on Mondays at 4 pm ET. However, because this was a joint statement, we agreed on a time with the ADA that was amenable to both organizations that was different than the usual time. However, unfortunately no one in the AHA Communications dept. caught the error on the release.
