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The Consequences of Silencing the “Voice of CDC” For more than 60 years, the MMWR has published life-saving information on U.S. public health crises. The Trump administration’s pause on health communications has disrupted that essential mission.

It is 27 years since Dr Franz Ingelfinger announced that a manuscript would be rejected by his journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, if it had been published elsewhere. Many other medical journals have since adopted this so-called Ingelfinger rule. The restrictions resulting from the rule have generated enormous controversy in medical journalism, as shown by the first of the two-part article The Ingelfinger rule, embargoes, and journal peer review. Critics say that the rule restricts the free flow of information, whereas proponents claim that information from a paper released early may be inaccurate because the paper has not been subjected to peer review. Yet peer review itself has also come under scrutiny, with its many limitations rarely being openly discussed.

Peer review is one of the main reasons put forward in support of the Ingelfinger rule. As the second of the two-part article The Ingelfinger rule, embargoes, and journal peer review shows, however, the economic interests in controlling information may be equally important. Not least is the rule's contribution to journal profits by raising circulation and advertising revenues. An additional effect has been to frighten authors into silence, sometimes delaying the release of important findings that bear on the public health. Moreover, the resulting poor cooperation between researchers and journalists risks unintentional errors in reporting. Unless there is evidence that the rule improves and assures the quality of what journals publish, the 27-year-old Ingelfinger rule should be dropped.