European Cancer Congress lifts all embargoes after abstracts fall into financial analysts’ hands

The European Cancer Congress, the conference of the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO), sent this email to its press list a little while ago:

Due to circumstances beyond our control we are lifting embargoes on all European Cancer Congress press releases as of now. The abstracts are all online now, including late-breaking abstracts. They can be found here:

http://eccamsterdam2013.ecco-org.eu/Scientific-Programme/Searchable-Programme.aspx#anchorScpr

Therefore, for the remainder of the Congress we will email out the rest of our press releases either on the day of presentation to the congress or the press conference (whichever is earlier) and they will be for immediate release.

What happened? ECCO tells Embargo Watch:

No longer embargoed: The 10 Embargo Watch embargo guidelines

Photo by David Berkowitz http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidberkowitz/

Soon after I launched Embargo Watch in early 2010, various reporters and public affairs officers have asked me to gather the various “rules” I’ve suggested for embargoes into one place, using vignettes that illustrate how they’ve been broken. That always felt like a good idea, but not one I ever found time for.

Well, I finally got around to it, thanks to a request from my friend Fabio Turone, the managing editor of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Public Health.