A column on the website of the Radio Television Digital News Association raises questions about the widespread practice of radio news anchors reading commercials on the air. Excerpts: “The principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity and public accountability are in danger with this practice. We are crossing the line, throwing ourselves into the position of becoming [...]
The blog announces that Vicks VapoRub sent about $400 in goodies to a Reuters writer – not even a fulltime employee. One wonder how many other journalists received these gifts. EW writes: “Product samples are one thing, if they’re of minimal value and a reporter needs them to write about a new release – although [...]
Somebody sent me this story because it made their skin crawl. Reuters reported: “Overactive bladder next Botox frontier.” “Next” Botox frontier implies that the drug has already conquered at least one formidable frontier. The story explains that half the drug’s sales are for wrinkle-reducing uses, the other half from a variety of other uses including [...]
On the Health Beat blog, Naomi Freundlich writes, “Harm Outweighs Benefit when Cardiac Tests Are Marketed Directly to Consumers.” In this lengthy piece, she reflects on: • marketing of heart scans, including to journalist Marshall Allen, who then wrote about it; • a recent JAMA commentary that explored the campaigns of the LifeLine Screening company; [...]
Lest anyone think that the recent studies showing how marketing is driving up the use of robotic prostatectomy (see yesterday’s post, “Ads & news (often resembling ads) fuel growing use of robotic prostatectomy“) is just academic hypothesis, let me roll out what promoters often do – an anecdote. After yesterday’s post, a physician (who wished [...]
Those who market heart scan services should be more careful about what they promote and to whom. When ProPublica’s Marshall Allen got a telemarketing offer for heart scans for him and his wife, he followed up with a story, “Body Imaging Business Pushes Scans Many Don’t Need – Including Me.” Reminding Allen about the deaths [...]
The Star Tribune is the latest to report on an issue we’ve reported on before on this blog. Their story, “Lawsuits For the Cure?,” begins: Sue Prom helped organize the “Mush for a Cure” sled-dog race to raise money to fight breast cancer five years ago, a fundraiser that was humming along nicely until it [...]
A paper published in the Journal for Healthcare Quality examined the content of information on 400 randomly selected U.S. hospital websites about robotic surgery. Results: “Forty-one percent of hospital websites described robotic surgery. Among these, 37% percent presented robotic surgery on their homepage, 73% used manufacturer-provided stock images or text, and 33% linked to a [...]
It’s been quite a week for journalists to tell stories about how medical industry PR people have tried to manipulate them. There was the minimum $100 offer. Then the $250 offer. And now Peggy Peck of MedPage Today writes, “The wolf in sheep’s clothing.” She posts and writes about an email she recently received: Here [...]
Maybe the cat is out of the bag, after one sleazy PR campaign was uncovered and publicized last week. That one was about a company offering to pay journalists $100 for every “patient who sees the press release in your newspaper and commits to our exclusive and effective process.” But now freelance journalist Lisa Collier [...]
Better than a competing piece by Reuters but still a little short on some details about this asthma drug study.
An adequate summary of this asthma drug trial’s design doesn’t make up for the overly optimistic tone about the drug’s future. A New York Times story was better.
This story focuses on a family that may have a rare genetic mutation that increases their risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, the “rare” part wasn’t mentioned until 1,600 words into this 2,100 word story.
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