Opinion: Boosting the promise — and reining in the peril — of Covid-19 preprints

STAT July 28, 2020
Rick Weiss and Jonathan Moreno

There’s a common refrain in engineering: When it comes to the triple goal of “faster, better, cheaper,” you can really ever achieve only two of the three. This wisdom applies as well to the rapidly moving field of scientific preprints — fast-turnaround, web-based publications of research findings that have not yet been subjected to review by outside experts.

Preprints are all the rage today among scientists conducting research on the novel coronavirus and the related issues of Covid-19 diagnosis, treatment, and vaccine development. That’s understandable, and in many respects commendable, as a way to quickly share knowledge about this global health crisis.

Preprint servers such as bioRxiv and medRxiv post research reports almost immediately and with only modest oversight, allowing...

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