The following Publisher's Note has been posted on HealthNewsReview.org:

We often benefit from some of the best health care journalism the world has ever seen. It's investigative, in-depth, analytical, creative, gutsy, important and helpful. It raises questions about health policy and health care reform, about conflicts of interest in medical research, and about the way things are done in the massive health care industry.

But on stories about new treatments, tests, products and procedures, US news organizations day in and day out don't do a very good job.

We are pleased that the journal PLoS Medicine has published our paper, “How Do US Journalists Cover Treatments, Tests, Products and Procedures? An Evaluation of 500 Stories.� It summarizes our first two years’ experience on HealthNewsReview.org.

The brief summary is that between 62-77% of stories failed to adequately address costs, harms, benefits, the quality of the evidence and the existence of other options when covering health care products and procedures. You could call it a “kid in the candy store� portrayal of US health care, whereby everything is made to look terrific, risk-free, and without a price tag. Nothing could be further from the truth.

PLoS stands for Public Library of Science. The journal is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal.

The journal’s editors published an editorial, "False Hopes, Unwarranted Fears: The Trouble with Medical News Stories" In it, the editors write; “Schwitzer’s alarming report card of the trouble with medical news stories is thus a wakeup call for all of involved in disseminating health research—researchers, academic institutions, journal editors, reporters and media organizations—to work collaboratively to improve the standards of health reporting.�

And three Australian researchers commented on our website’s routine analysis of news stories “for any signs of disease mongering� in an essay entitled “Disease Mongering Is Now Part of the Global Health Debate.�

We’re pleased that PLoS Medicine acknowledged the complicity of different parties in the often-messy health/medical news-making sausage factory. They even looked in the mirror and saw the role that journals play in promoting hype and the role they could play in educating journalists and – through them - consumers. We don’t mind telling you that a similar manuscript was rejected earlier by another medical journal. Part of the rejection note stated:

“While we applauded the standards (that HealthNewsReview.org employs), some of us wondered if it was realistic to expect that most physicians and scientist-authors, let alone journalists, could realistically meet those standards given the generally poor training all receive in the systematic review and interpretation of evidence, and the presentation of that evidence and its contexts in written form.�

We could not disagree more. Is this to say that physicians and scientist-authors – much less journalists – should be let off the hook for their inability to accurately present and interpret evidence? We were shocked by this response. It may, in large part, explain why we get what we get from some journals and from some news stories that rely on journals.

So we are grateful for the peer-reviewed publication opportunity through a journal like PLoS Medicine.

We are also happy to report that recently we have been contacted by researchers in China and Japan who are interested in launching web projects similar to HealthNewsReview.org in their countries.

We welcome your comments on this note, on our journal article, and/or on the accompanying editorials.
Click here to visit our forum.

We also invite you to listen to the video clip with some of my additional thoughts and perspectives on this work.

We often benefit from some of the best health care journalism the world has ever seen. It's investigative, in-depth, analytical, creative, gutsy, important and helpful. It raises questions about health policy and health care reform, about conflicts of interest in medical research, and about the way things are done in the massive health care industry.

But on stories about new treatments, tests, products and procedures, US news organizations day in and day out don't do a very good job.

We are pleased that the journal PLoS Medicine has published our paper, “How Do US Journalists Cover Treatments, Tests, Products and Procedures? An Evaluation of 500 Stories.” It summarizes our first two years’ experience on HealthNewsReview.org.

The brief summary is that between 62-77% of stories failed to adequately address costs, harms, benefits, the quality of the evidence and the existence of other options when covering health care products and procedures. You could call it a “kid in the candy store” portrayal of US health care, whereby everything is made to look terrific, risk-free, and without a price tag. Nothing could be further from the truth.

PLoS stands for Public Library of Science. The journal is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal.

The journal’s editors published an editorial, “False Hopes, Unwarranted Fears: The Trouble With Medical News Stories.” In it, the editors write; “Schwitzer’s alarming report card of the trouble with medical news stories is thus a wakeup call for all of involved in disseminating health research—researchers, academic institutions, journal editors, reporters and media organizations—to work collaboratively to improve the standards of health reporting.”

And three Australian researchers commented on our website’s routine analysis of news stories “for any signs of disease mongering” in an essay entitled “Disease Mongering Is Now Part of the Global Health Debate.”

We’re pleased that PLoS Medicine acknowledged the complicity of different parties in the often-messy health/medical news-making sausage factory. They even looked in the mirror and saw the role that journals play in promoting hype and the role they could play in educating journalists and – through them - consumers. We don’t mind telling you that a similar manuscript was rejected earlier by another medical journal. Part of the rejection note stated:

“While we applauded the standards (that HealthNewsReview.org employs), some of us wondered if it was realistic to expect that most physicians and scientist-authors, let alone journalists, could realistically meet those standards given the generally poor training all receive in the systematic review and interpretation of evidence, and the presentation of that evidence and its contexts in written form.”

We could not disagree more. Is this to say that physicians and scientist-authors – much less journalists – should be let off the hook for their inability to accurately present and interpret evidence? We were shocked by this response. It may, in large part, explain why we get what we get from some journals and from some news stories that rely on journals.

So we are grateful for the peer-reviewed publication opportunity through a journal like PLoS Medicine.

We are also happy to report that recently we have been contacted by researchers in China and Japan who are interested in launching web projects similar to HealthNewsReview.org in their countries.

We welcome your comments on this note, on our journal article, and/or on the accompanying editorials.
Click here to visit our forum

Last weekend I watched examples of the good and the ugly in TV health news.

The good was a segment on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, in which journalist Melody Petersen discussed her new book, "Our Daily Meds," and how drug companies sell their products.

The ugly was on CNN's House Call during which CNN again gave unsupported, non-evidence-based health test advice to women of various age groups. And they featured an interview with Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom," in which they let the author get away with saying - unchallenged:

"I had a big old fibroid, big as a soccer ball, right side, OK? Right side, typically the masculine side, or the men in your life. And I believe that fibroids, which 40 percent of women have, are creativity that hasn't been burst yet, or they are creative energy that we have pushed into a dead end job or a relationship."

There was no counter to that statement, no challenge, not even a look of incredulity. What did that mean?
What kind of journalism is that to let someone say that on the air without explanation? Believe me, it burst my bubble when I heard it!

"It's not their story and they're sticking to it," is the headline of Florida media critic's piece on a phenomenon in local TV news that we've written about before.

Across the country, on many local TV stations' health reports, you are being deceived if you think that the "reporter" was actually a "reporter." He/she may only be putting his/her name on a story produced by an outside company. The St. Pete media critic found at least 9 TV stations that used the exact same story with the exact same wording - with the only difference being that each station stuck their logo on the screen as if they did the piece.

Excerpt of the story:

"In the print world, presenting another outlet's work as your own without attribution would be called plagiarism. But TV stations often present stories written by other news services or affiliate stations without notifying viewers. ...

Many TV professionals say this is a routine practice. TV reporting, after all, is a team sport where producers, camera operators and on-air reporters collaborate to create a single story.

I've always felt reports branded with the name of a specific personality are different. There's an expectation that health reports bearing (a reporter's) name were actually reported by her — and the fact that stations don't really identify when their personalities are reading reports developed by a news service, indicates they know this, too.

Critics of this practice say it helps make local TV reporting more generic across the board, with station Web sites and broadcasts across the country featuring the same story within days of each other.

It's also a further blurring of ethical lines prompted by economics, allowing a single reporter to present more stories in a week than he could possibly research on his own."

Trudy Lieberman writes:

The Rocky Mountain News’s coverage of John McCain’s campaign stop in Denver last week raises an important issue for reporters, especially those covering the election: Do you let a candidate’s remarks stand unchallenged even if they are wrong or misleading?

McCain had come to town to talk mostly about health care, the paper reported, noting that the topic took up a large part of his hour-long speech. The News offered all too typical coverage of such talks, however—bits and pieces on a lot of topics, with quotes here and there. We do learn that on health care, McCain urged states to take a leadership role in reform, and that he pumped his tax credit aimed at helping Americans buy health insurance. In the next graph, the paper said that McCain’s rationale for the tax credits “is that making major reforms and using government to work through the problem will affect the quality of coverage for Americans—which he called the best in the world.��?

The best health care in the world? McCain has asserted that before and so have other politicians. No doubt we will hear it again. But the evidence says otherwise.

Read the whole piece and see some of her reminders about Clinton's and Obama's less-than-true campaign comments.

I'm proud to offer a link to a class project done by four undergraduate students in my Advanced Reporting Methods: Health & Medical Journalism class.

"The Uninsured: You're in your 20s. Why should you care?" is a website researched, designed and launched by four seniors.

Mind you, it's not perfect. But consider that this was an effort of 20-something undergrads. They proved that you can tackle a complex issue and make it come to life for your audience using various media formats.

There were three other noteworthy student projects in this class this semester but this is the only one I can make immediately publicly accessible.

There is hope for the future of health journalism.

Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee have a piece in Slate today that asks, "Are doctors shilling for drug companies on NPR?"

The piece begins:

"A few weeks ago, devoted listeners of National Public Radio were treated to an episode of the award-winning radio series The Infinite Mind called "Prozac Nation: Revisited." The segment featured four prestigious medical experts discussing the controversial link between antidepressants and suicide. In their considered opinions, all four said that worries about the drugs have been overblown.

The radio show, which was broadcast nationwide and paid for in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, had the air of quiet, authoritative credibility. Host Dr. Fred Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, interviewed three prominent guests, and any radio producer would be hard-pressed to find a more seemingly credible quartet. Credible, that is, except for a crucial detail that was never revealed to listeners: All four of the experts on the show, including Goodwin, have financial ties to the makers of antidepressants. Also unmentioned were the "unrestricted grants" that The Infinite Mind has received from drug makers, including Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Prozac.

We don't know just how much funding or when the show last received it, since neither Goodwin nor the show's producers responded to repeated requests for interviews. But the larger point is that undisclosed financial conflicts of interest among media sources seem to be popping up all over the place these days. Some experts who appear independent are, in fact, serving as stealth marketers for the drug and biotech industries, and reporters either don't know about their sources' conflicts of interests, or they fail to disclose them to the public."

Disclosure: I am interviewed in the story. But don't let that stop you. The piece is worth reading.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that administrators of the county's public hospital system have banned workers from reading a newspaper series critical of the system - at least while they are at work. The paper reports that the hospital system blocked internet access to the Star-Telegram.com site.

The newspaper says that three of its reporters spent four months examining the JPS Health Network.

The series, which began last week, opened like this in part one:

"The waiting room reeked. Along a crowded hallway, patients lay in beds, with only a thin curtain for privacy. Nurses readying for a new case in surgery noticed blood, bone and globules of fat on the walls and floor and stuck to wheels of carts.

Chance brought to the hospital teenagers from car wrecks, fathers hurt on the job, police officers injured in the line of duty. Others -- the poor -- came because they believed they had nowhere else to go.

They were greeted last year at an overburdened emergency department where the staff could be robotic and hardened to patients. Sometimes, inexperienced nurses evaluated the sick and suffering.

Some patients were shuffled to a stifling back room to wait. Medical records, crucial lab results -- even patients -- got lost. Staff didn't notice when one Alzheimer's patient walked home in 100-degree heat. Another patient was dismissed because doctors didn't get lab results indicating a life-threatening disease.

The trauma center was described as a war zone. Operating rooms as chaotic. In too many places, instruments were broken, rooms dirty, linens threadbare.

Welcome to a hospital flush with cash and rife with problems. Welcome to John Peter Smith Hospital, hub of the Tarrant County Hospital District.

Boosted by tax funding other local hospitals don't get, JPS has been racking up fat surpluses -- nearly $97 million last year alone.

But the cash has not helped a dedicated core of doctors and nurses overcome the system's callousness, ineptitude and filth. JPS is a hospital that many of its own doctors wouldn't recommend."

There are many very smart people scrutinizing health news coverage these days. Some of them populate the Chance News wiki based at Dartmouth College.

Look at how one observer analyzed recent news coverage of the stories behind some of these headlines:

The Independent: "Big breakfast is most important meal -- if you want a baby boy."

Reuters: "Skipping breakfast may mean your baby is a girl."

New Scientist: "Breakfast cereals boost chances of conceiving boys."

CNN.com: "Study shows bananas make baby boys."

New York Times: "Boy or Girl? The Answer May Depend on Mom's Eating Habits."