Prepublication Release of Scientific Data and the Right of the Public to Know: Adapting to Our Times.

Technical innovations for more rapid and cheaper communication have begun to blur the boundaries of professional and other expert fields. This change has greatly widened the market for reliable new medical information, but it has also brought new tensions among authors, journals publishing their papers, and the news media. Does informal publication of new medical information before its appearance in scientific documents injure the interests of authors, journals, and the wider public? The possible answers depend in large part on how physicians should be expected to function in this new age of expanding information and speedier communication. A possible solution for these new problems would be access for all interested parties to journal papers through an on-line system at the point of their acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]