Another terribly incomplete story on a morning segment on network TV.
It was about an osteoporosis drug now being looked at for poorly healing bone fractures.
CBS put a crawl under this story reading “Stem cells to build better bones.” And then failed to mention stem cells even one time in the story.
They also had:
* No discussion of costs – which are significant.
* No discussion of evidence, which is limited.
* No discussion of the source of the information, but we can assume it was a recent study for which there was no control group to compare the results to. Furthermore, that study has not yet been published and the full results have not been reviewed by other experts. These are important caveats that the story should have mentioned.
Instead of data, the segment gushed calling it “godsend…really exciting…very important…could be lifesaving.”
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
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Eskimo
April 16, 2009 at 4:56 pmFunny, the University of Rochester (more like, Eli Lilly) press release also mentions stem cells. It justifies this by saying that Forteo/teriparatide stimulates bone stem cells. Quite the marketing switcheroo!
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