Is this the scientific embargo version of insider trading?

If you’re a health reporter like I am, you may be familiar with emails with subject lines like this:

For Monday @ 4:00 PM Expert Ophthalmologist (Dr. Mark Fromer) RE: EMBARGOED – Study Suggests Association Between Regular Aspirin Use, Increased Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

The email, sent on January 18, continues:

Le Devoir loses embargoed access for three months after breaking CIHI embargo

For the second time in less than two months, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has sanctioned a news organization for breaking one of its embargoes.

In December, the QMI Agency, publisher of the Sun newspapers, earned a six-month suspension. Last Thursday, the subject of this email was Le Devoir, a French-language newspaper out of Montreal, CIHI tells Embargo Watch:

PNAS lifts embargo on Neanderthal carbon dating paper after break

PNAS is lifting the embargo on a study whose authors say raises big questions about when Neanderthals died out. From their email sent a little while ago:

Due to an embargo break, PNAS is lifting the embargo early on the following paper. All other articles are under the scheduled embargo:

Royal Society breaks its own embargo

The Royal Society has lifted the embargo early on two studies after jumping the gun on their own site. From an email sent to the society’s press list last Friday:

Due to a technical error two of the papers featured in our earlier release this morning and scheduled for online publication at 00:01 GMT Wednesday 6 February 2013 have been published early. We have therefore lifted the embargo on the following two papers. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.