Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz strayed beyond media observations and injected his own comments about the US Preventive Services Task Force breast screening recommendations.
He calls the task force recommendation a “don’t-worry-be-happy-till-you’re-50 finding.”
He defines “the essential problem with such studies” as “in the end it’s a very personal decision.”
Exactly. And that was the entire point of the USPSTF recommendation – that women need to weigh the harms and benefits in consultation with their doctors. But Kurtz must not have read that far.
And then he goes on to cite a list of journalists who wrote about their own personal opposition to the recommendations.
But he didn’t quote even one person who wrote in a more balanced way about the evidence behind the recommendations. So, while his column was headlined, “A battle over breasts,” he didn’t present much about “the other side” in this battle.
Then again, Kurtz has exhibited an advocacy stance for the screen-screen-screen mentality in the past in his handling of a friend’s promotion of prostate cancer screening.
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
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