[4] Subsequently, the first issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and the Collateral Branches of Medical Science was published in January 1812.

[30] The site was launched several months earlier in 1996, but the editors wanted proof that weekly electronic publication would work.

Referred to as the Ingelfinger rule, the policy is intended to protect newsworthiness, and to subject research to peer review "before it is touted to the public or the profession".

[41] By 1991, four types of exceptions were recognized, including when "prepublication release of research conclusions is warranted because of immediate implications for the public health".

[44][45] In the early 2000s, The New England Journal of Medicine was involved in a controversy around problems with research on the drug Vioxx.

That year, both the US Food and Drug Administration and the Journal of the American Medical Association also cast doubt on the validity of the data interpretation that had been published in the NEJM.

In December 2005, NEJM published an expression of concern about the original study following discovery that the authors knew more about certain adverse events than they disclosed at the time of publication.

NEJM also works with authors whose articles report research supported by funding bodies with open access mandates, including (but not limited to) Plan S funders and the U.S. government, including NIH, to ensure that authors are able to meet their funders’ requirements for public access to research results.

For research articles submitted before February 1, 2024, NEJM makes the full-text Version of Record available at NEJM.org six months after publication.

[51] NEJM also has two podcast features, one with interviews of doctors and researchers that are publishing in the journal, and another summarizing the content of each issue.