Help Patients Understand Pitfalls of Preliminary Data

The ongoing race to prevent and treat COVID-19 is raising questions about "preprint" reports and other preliminary data.

Preprints are early versions of articles posted online BEFORE peer review or editing. "Early release" or "online first" articles are different...they go through full review before publication.

Point out that peer review is a key step to evaluate if study methods and conclusions are appropriate...and to help keep weak or faulty data from being distributed. This limits misinformation.