Scientific works are normally published in peer-reviewed journals, but He failed to do so regarding the birth of gene-edited babies. This was one of the grounds on which He was criticized. It was later reported that He did submit two manuscripts to Nature and the Journal of the American Medical Association, which were both rejected, mainly on ethical issues. Hes first manuscript titled "Birth of Twins After Genome Editing for HIV Resistance" was submitted to Nature on 19 November. He shared copies of the manuscript to the Associated Press, which he further allowed to document his works. In an interview, Hurlbut opined that the condemnation of Hes work would have been less harsh if the study had been published, and said, "If it had been published, the publishing process itself would have brought a level of credibility because of the normal scrutiny involved; the data analysis would have been vetted."
The scientific manuscripts of He were revealed when an anonymous source sent them to the MIT Technology Review, which reported them on 3 December 2019.