Donald Johnson

Baxter, Biogen Idec & Elan Subjects of Broken Embargoes

Journals and conferences embargo papers in an effort to maximize their ability to win publicity for their organizations when the papers are released in the journals and at the meetings. They force researchers to agree to their embargoes as part of their terms when they accept the papers for publication or presentation.

Since the researchers' careers depend on their publishing records in peer review journals, they play the game. Also, researchers' grants often require that they publish in peer reviewed journals and that they make presentations at major conferences.

Thus, the intellectual integrity of medical researchers is compromised both by the organizations that fund their research and by the organizations that publish their findings. This is one reason there is so little trust in medical research, medical journals and the information that comes out of major medical conferences. It is so compromised by money and ambition, and it reflects badly on academia and the medial research community.

That analysts broke the embargoes is only natural. They had access to inside information that they couldn't publish, and that causes disclosure problems for the analysts and the drug companies involved with the SEC and shareholders.

Researchers should refuse to embargo their findings. Academia should find other ways of measuring and rewarding scholarly work, and securities analysts should continue to break embargoes. Medical journals and conferences have had their days and should go away.