A review in JAMA shows that journal article findings that a treatment worked were contradicted 16 percent of the time by later studies. And another 16 percent of the time, studies found weaker results than earlier suggested. So nearly a third of original published results did not hold up to further scrutiny.
Dartmouth and VA researchers Steve Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz have warned about news coverage that is “Too Much Too Soon” in coverage of presentations at scientific meetings.
For those journalists who live off weekly journals for their stories, and who fail to follow up on subsequent findings, the same “too much too soon” message is valid.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Monday at #ADA2021, an infectious disease epidemiologist, a journalist, and a researcher shared perspectives on communication of risk in the era of COVID-19: http://ow.ly/ROfR30rMeE7 @AstleyCM @garyschwitzer @berthahidalgo @ADA_DiabetesPro
Shoutouts to @susan_bewley @drkevinknopf @MichaelBaum11 in this call for more than fawning coverage from press releases for these kinds of stories.
Also, linked history inside goes back 5 years just on Grail apparently trying to become Holy Grail. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1408849696416841731
Comments (2)
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Ira Allen
July 15, 2005 at 2:16 pmI was, frankly, surprised that 64% of studies had findings that were upheld!
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