Violations of the Embargo and a New Policy on Early Publicity

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Abstract
Given the public's interest in the possibility of preventing illness or forestalling death by taking vitamins, it probably was inevitable that the paper entitled “The Effect of Vitamin E and Beta Carotene on the Incidence of Lung Cancer and Other Cancers in Male Smokers” in the April 14 issue of the Journal1 would receive wide attention. The study failed to demonstrate a protective effect of those antioxidant vitamins on the risk of lung cancer and even suggested that beta carotene might increase the risk. Our subscribers, most of whom do not receive the Journal until Thursday, the day of publication, must have been surprised when they heard the study reported on ABC's World News Tonight Tuesday evening, April 12. Ordinarily, papers from the Journal are not reported by the news media until Wednesday evening (for the electronic media) or Thursday morning (for the print media), because of an embargo.

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