Comments on: Is this the scientific embargo version of insider trading?

By: Earle Holland

Earle Holland — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:17:02 +0000

The embargo issue aside, frankly Ivan, to my mind this strategy is pretty Mickey-Mouse. It feeds the needs of lazy reporters who don’t want to do the legwork to find experts on their own, and offers a gift to docs/experts who didn’t have any role in the reported research. This kind of effort offering a “reaction to” research by folks not a part of the project is used consistently by many institutions whose success in getting their own research published is rare. Commenting on the work of others is an easy way to get attention and doesn’t require a lot of effort or knowledge. It’s the kind of activity I never allowed when I was running my PIO shop. I know that this is the same mindset that supports ProfNet, HARO, and some other services but it never seemed right to me.

And yes, I’d consider this a definite embargo break if I was making the decision. I would hope that the JAMA Network would take the appropriate action.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:10:33 +0000

Leaving aside the discussion of the embargo system, maybe there is a way here to centralize these sort of pre-comments in the age of the internet to add needed context to stories, as Matt Herper suggests? The big worry is that that all of it will all be fatuous praise of the study rather than genuinely critical comment, especially if the activity is captured by the journals.

Perhaps this could be a function of the ‘Science Media Centre’ discussed for U.S. reporters. I wouldn’t use it, but perhaps it could help out the general assignment types more often now assigned to medical coverage.

By: ivanoransky

ivanoransky — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:15:32 +0000

Great comment, thanks Matt. Reminds me of a 2010 post on Wall Street and the NEJM: http://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/why-wall-street-analysts-could-write-about-nejm-lorcaserin-study-before-the-news-media/

By: Matthew Herper (@matthewherper)

Matthew Herper (@matthewherper) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 14:51:48 +0000

I share some of the unease with the sharing of study contents, but I also think these emails are helpful and serve a purpose. It would be better if the journals themselves provided a way for experts who did not conduct a study to reach reporters who had already agreed to the embargo.

This is aside from whether embargoes are really a good thing. The worry that they lead to real insider trading — not some metaphorical scientific embargo version — is a big issue, and I think it’s not uncommon for Wall Streeters to get ahold of actual embargoed manuscripts. But I don’t think these emails actually make that problem worse. (I’m also often puzzled that stocks frequently don’t move before the embargo lifts — evidence that maybe the system is less leaky than it appears.)

If we’re going to have an embargo system, it would be far better if 10 or 15 such emails appeared in reporters’ inboxes before a study appeared. (I’ve used Kaplan’s sources and some of them are great.)

By: David Sampson

David Sampson — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:27:11 +0000

My interest in this debate is as a PIO who promotes work done by American Cancer Society scientists (and less commonly, our grantees) appearing in journals like NEJM. I think the line should be drawn at authorship. Promoting the work of your own scientists in cooperation with the journal makes sense. Promoting outside experts using embargoed information feels wrong in a couple ways. Primarily, it’s not your information to promote. And secondarily, it’s promotion gone wild. Pushing boundaries, indeed. But sometimes boundaries exist for a reason.