MANY THERAPEUTIC innovations are reported in general news media. Even more new treatments come to the attention of physicians in publications featuring digests and summaries of original articles; and, of course, therapeutic news is spread by ubiquitous medical advertising media and detail men. As a result of this profusion of medical news reporting it is highly probable that the physician will first learn about a new treatment from some secondary source which does not present all of the evidence on which the conclusions have been based. A recent example is found in an annotation in The Lancet which begins, "A new treatment for premature infants with hyaline membrane disease was suggested at a (recent) meeting . . . the full details have not yet reached us."