Joint Position Statement: Guidance on Medical Publications & Pre-Prints by AMWA, EMWA & ISMPP

During the COVID-19 health crisis, medical researchers have felt significant pressure to publish relevant findings as quickly as possible. A danger is that the rush to publish could lead to the misleading, incomplete, or inaccurate publication of data that can directly inform critical medical or health decisions. Further, if the threshold of publication oversight is lowered, it may become a precedent that cannot be easily reversed, potentially eroding standards and causing the public to lose trust in medical science.

The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA), and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) published a Joint Position Statement (JPS) on 31 March 2021, in the peer-reviewed journal Current Medical Research and Opinion (CMRO) – emphasizing that having a pre-publication review is essential and asserting that the integrity of published scientific and medical research must be protected. The statement also provides recommendations aimed to resolve the dilemma between speed and quality of published research.