In response to these controversies, bioRxiv added a disclaimer above all
preprints emphasising their contents were not peer-reviewed and should
not be taken as definitive in clinical decisions or news reporting.
Elsewhere, a large number of academics backed an official statement to
denounce conspiracy theory and misleading information about the origins
of SARS-CoV-2 and reinforce public faith in science \citep{calisher_statement_2020}. However,
more preventive ways of handling and filtering out unsound evidence from
the large volumes of preprint material during future global emergencies
are clearly necessary.
This begs an important question - whose responsibility is it to carry
out such regulation over use and dissemination of preprint evidence?
Predictably, the answer is likely universal: that of authors to ensure
their preprint research is rigorous and presented objectively; that of
preprint servers to encourage and streamline opportunities for peer
commentary; that of academics to provide such commentary in a timely and
constructive manner; and that of the wider public readership to
acknowledge the limitations of preprint research. In this case, a set of
guidelines for good practice in understanding and interpreting
unreviewed research for journalists and the general public would be a
valuable resource to mitigate the spread of misinformation surrounding
highly topical events. Some example starting points for this guidance is
given in Box 1. These broadly echo general considerations for
interpreting research and the scientific method for non-academic
audiences.