Rethinking peer review
======================

* Kue Young

Your editorial of Jan. 12 1 is absolutely right about the need for timely peer review, especially for manuscripts with potential public health significance. Timely peer review is important, but may not address the issue. The problem is with peer review itself, at least in relation to research dissemination that has significant public health impact. Most peer reviews consist of two to three reviewers and the editorial staff of the journal — at most 10–20 people in the world. Yet they are tasked with deciding matters that affect the lives of millions. What can be done? Would it be possible for journals to post potentially important manuscripts on the web before peer review? This way, instead of 20 people having knowledge of its contents and judging its worth, perhaps 200, or 2000 people will. The ultimate decision will still rest in the hands of the editors. Policy makers can also judge for themselves or pass it to their technical staff or ad hoc expert groups for review. This is, of course, not perfect, but is an improvement over the current practice.

## Footnotes

*   **For the full letter, go to:** [www.cmaj.ca/cgi/eletters/182/1/9#265351](http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/eletters/182/1/9#265351)

## REFERENCE

1.  1. Stanbrook MB, Hébert PC. Disseminate time-sensitive research faster. CMAJ 2010;182:9.
    
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