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In the second talk, Dr. Daniel Levy discussed the development of a genetic risk score that incorporated all 29 alleles identified in the GWA and the score’s associations with several blood pressure-related clinical outcomes (such as target organ damage and cardiovascular events). Before doing so though, he asked everyone in the audience to refrain from photographing the slides or recording the presentation due to an upcoming publication of the study.
As a reporter, I don’t consider myself bound by such requests for secrecy. If it’s presented in a public forum, it’s fair game in my book.
My question is to physicians, many of whom are now quite well-published themselves, thanks to everyman’s news outlets — blogs and social media. Would you refrain from discussing the study in a widely-read (or completely unknown) blog or online forum? Are you going to scoop reporters, who comply with the request? Do you think that such requests slow medical research?
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