Medical journals and urgent medical news

The Director of the Office of Health Policy Information in the Harvard School of Public Health, concerned with public anxieties about the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, has urged scientific journals to take various steps to speed scientific information along, both to the news media and to print in the journals themselves. The Annals has for some years used one of these steps, accelerated peer review and revision of accepted papers. This journal also puts no constraints on authors discussing their research with the news media before publication of their papers. The journal, with authors' permissions, sends pre-publication copies of important papers to the Federal agencies with responsibilities related to those papers. The Department of Health and Human Services should consider setting up a clearinghouse that could receive such pre-publication copies and direct them to appropriate agencies. But none of these steps should by-pass peer review.