A national spokesperson for the ACS CAN office confirmed late today that the “Screening is Seeing” ad that I criticized on this blog yesterday has now been pulled.
The spokesperson said, “It would be unfortunate if, in trying to raise awareness about this critical issue, a brief, powerful message in the ad became the story rather than the issue itself.”
It has become clear to me within the last 24 hours that the ad was not universally embraced within the American Cancer Society and that there was significant agreement with the stance I took in criticizing the ad.
More to come on this as it becomes available.
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 (6)
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Roshan
August 12, 2010 at 6:14 pmKnowing CAN is an advocacy arm of ACS, I understand why CAN would want to forcefully advocate for an issue that it strongly supports. The objective of this ad was to make a point, convey a message succinctly coinciding with the 20th anniversary of this CDC sponsored program.
It is perhaps unrealistic for HealthNewsNews and Prof. Schwitzer to expect that level of scientific complexity be carried by an ad.
After all, it is an ad not a peer-reviewed article.
Gary Schwitzer
August 12, 2010 at 6:37 pmRoshan,
Thanks for sharing your opinion, which I respect.
But it wouldn’t take much for an ad to clarify WHICH screening it was referring to. I wasn’t looking for “scientific complexity” as you say. I was looking for clarity and specificity. It doesn’t require a peer-reviewed journal article to do that.
In the eyes of some authorities at the American Cancer Society, the criticism that I leveled was worthy of some action, given that they pulled the ad. If one little blogger made criticisms that didn’t resonate, didn’t hit home, weren’t on the money, would the powerful agency have pulled its ad?
I think not.
Jeff Kreisberg
August 13, 2010 at 9:15 amI expect this type of behavior from big pharma, not the ACS. I cringe every time I hear sports radio personalities reading ads from urology groups telling men to “step up to the plate” and be screened for prostate cancer! This is dangerous stuff!
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like