This story on a new version of a gene test meant to help women with small breast tumors make treatment decisions provides good context, but it may have obscured a key limitation of the study.
This story makes many of the mistakes typical of reports about tests intended to detect diseases early. It highlights potential and uNPRoven benefits, while largely ignoring the harms and costs.
A surprisingly fawning, one-sided and incomplete story.
A better test for TB is, indeed, reason for excitement, but this story glossed over some of the limitations of the research and failed to describe the real world limitations of making an expensive test widely available in cash-strapped countries.
Impressed enough by the technology to give it an award, the WSJ apparently wasn’t concerned enough to adequately explain the evidence or the risks.
Vague, inaccurate report on a very preliminary study.
According to promising early research, treatment with antibodies naturally produced in the body appears to halt the memory-robbing progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Readers of this AP report are more likely than those who see only the WebMD story to understand the slight difference in memory loss and cognitive decline between the treatment and placebo groups in these Alzheimer’s disease trials.
Spines are not the only thing bent out of shape in this one-sided report about a scoliosis test being developed.
News editors should have taken a hint from the editors of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology who gave this research space for only a brief report, not thinking it worthy of a full-length article. The story exaggerates the importance and mischaracterizes the results of the study.
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