Medical research findings are customarily not made public prior to their publication in a medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and ttherefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Ttherefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research. The argument assumes that ['unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur', 'the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published', 'all medical research findings are subjected to prepublication peer review', 'anyone who does not serve on a medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings']