ASCO tweaks conference embargo policy

The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is closely watched by reporters and Wall Street analysts alike, and that usually makes it good fodder for Embargo Watch. ASCO has changed its embargo policy regularly over the years, and this year is no exception.

According an email sent to reporters earlier this month:

PREVAILing (lack of) wisdom: Embargoes laid bare in a mess involving Boston Scientific (and a lot of others)

By now, Embargo Watch readers will probably have heard about Boston Scientific’s PREVAIL study of the Watchman stroke/clot prevention device, findings of which were scheduled to be presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) meeting on Sunday but weren’t, thanks to an embargo break by the company.
As theheart.org reported:

New York Times breaks embargo on study of web searches and drug side effects

The New York Times broke the embargo earlier today on a Stanford and Microsoft Research study of whether tracking Internet searches can help researchers identify drug side effects.

Here’s the story from the Times, “Finding Hidden Side Effects, With Web Search Data,” which went live sometime before 5:30 p.m. Eastern. The study, in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, was embargoed until 3:30 Pacific, or 6:30 Eastern.

And here’s the top of the press release: