This story is a marketing coup for a hospital, but its relevance to most cancer patients is unclear. This story failed on costs and on context, cheerleading for an approach that lacks evidence.
Andrew Holtz, former CNN-er, and past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists, was one of the reviewers of this piece. He recently joined the HealthNewsReview.org team of reviewers. I mention this because sometimes readers may wonder if the story reviewers have journalism – and, in this case, TV journalism experience. Between Andrew and me, we have more years (30+) of such experience than we may care to remember.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Take all the issues enmeshed in any cancer screening story and amplify it with the liquid biopsy issue. @AP's @CarlaKJohnson. did a solid job here. https://apnews.com/article/science-business-health-hodgkin-lymphoma-oregon-ca899bb9c4c7f1859d4e9ce16a1cf78d
Come on, NY Times; you must do better than this. Important research doesn’t need hype and the “breaking news” BS doesn’t help readers or patients. https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2022/03/nyt-proclaims-breaking-news/
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Marilyn Mann
June 8, 2009 at 8:57 pmGary,
A dear friend of mine has stage IV colon cancer. Recently, when I went to see her in the hospital, she had seen this story and was totally taken in by it. I hadn’t seen it, but her description made me suspicious. Apparently, they showed a couple of patients whose tumors had shrunk drastically, supposedly as a result of the genetic testing program. My friend was telling me that she wanted to find out more about it. In reality, there is no hope for her. I think it is irresponsible for ABC to do a story like that, literally raising false hopes in dying cancer patients like my friend.
Marilyn
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