The Ingelfinger Rule Revisited

Abstract

THE Journal has long had a policy, known as the Ingelfinger Rule, of considering a manuscript for publication only if its substance has not been submitted or reported elsewhere. This policy was promulgated in 1969 by the editor, Franz J. Ingelfinger,¹ to protect the Journal from publishing material that had already been published and thus had lost its originality. The policy was maintained by Ingelfinger's successor, Arnold S. Relman,^{2 , 3} who saw it as a way to discourage the public announcement of research findings before publication in a scientific journal, as well as to discourage the growing practice of redundant publication. Both Ingelfinger and Relman acknowledged that the Ingelfinger Rule also protects the freshness and interest of the articles we publish. The Ingelfinger Rule has always had strong detractors, who believe it unreasonably slows the reporting of research results to the profession and the public. In particular, many reporters in the popular media insist that they and their expert sources can distinguish valid from flawed work as well as the peer-review system can. With the recent change in the editorship of the Journal, it is appropriate to revisit this issue.