Presentation for Association of Health Care Journalists webinar on preprints during a pandemic, 4/30/20

1. Are Preprints the Problem?
Ivan Oransky
President, AHCJ
Vice President, Editorial, Medscape
Distinguished Writer in Residence, NYU
Co-Founder, Retraction Watch
@ivanoransky

2. Preprint or Peer-Reviewed Paper?

3. Preprint or Peer-Reviewed Paper?

4. Preprint or Peer-Reviewed Paper?

5. Preprint or Peer-Reviewed Paper?

6. Preprint or Peer-Reviewed Paper?

7. Preprint or Peer-Reviewed Paper?

8. The Need For Speed

9. The Scientific Radar Gun
• Befriend an epidemiologist
• Find outside sources
• Try to avoid Single Study Syndrome

10. When it comes to findings, the Covid-19 train
is an express, while the rigorous science
coach is a local. Until that local arrives at its
final destination, it may be wise to label all this
research—preprints, peer-reviewed papers,
and for goodness’ sake, pronouncements
from Donald Trump— with a black-box
warning: “There is some evidence for this
now. It will likely turn out to be at least partially
wrong.”
In other words, let’s all stay six studies away.