ABC World News Tonight broadcast a story last night, a portion of which is captured on their website, about patients’ own stem cells used to build new blood vessels.
It is interesting clinical research, but the story offered only breathlessly optimistic projections — no caveats, warnings, unknowns or uncertainties. An excerpt: “Results in more than 100 patients show that, within just three months after the stem cell injections, patients see a significant improvement in blood flow to the heart. The heart muscle itself actually doubles its ability to squeeze or contract.
The short-term results (3 months) send up one red flag. Another is the use of what are called surrogate endpoints. In other words, rather than reporting that people lived longer (which of course would be a pretty empty projection after only 3 months), they reported a different marker or endpoint to measure “success.” That is, blood flow to the heart.
But the coup de grâce comes with the next line of the story: “Researchers say these adult stem cells might help tens of millions of heart patients each year.”
Or, the story could be just as true to the facts and conclude, “Maybe not.” The science behind this work holds great potential. It doesn’t need hyping of short-term research measuring only surrogate endpoints that extrapolates these early findings to tens of millions of people.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
We’ve written about the hype of liquid biopsies for years (see link in comment below). And now this…. https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/12/medicare-shouldnt-cover-liquid-biopsies-early-cancer-detection/
Case counts still matter. “(There) are stories that may not be told adequately if only hospitalizations and deaths are emphasized.” @garyschwitzer interviewed by @dbauder of @AP. https://apnews.com/article/omicron-changing-news-outlets-covid-data-da9272f7c4c8a109c3bfb56bed9e9c76
My friend Gary @garyschwitzer wrote to his city council representative in a Minnesota town about a Viva Las Vegas event scheduled for January.
The response he got seems to perfectly capture where we are now.
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/12/2021-ends-with-covid-craziness-in-sports-and-politics/
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