On the Croakey blog from Australia, Dr. Tim Senior, a general practitioner working in Aboriginal health, provides advice for anyone reporting on medical tests (or indeed anyone wanting to understand the media’s reporting of screening and test issues). He was motivated by something he read in the paper:
Last week, the Sydney Morning Herald went for the Executive prevention market with an article headlined “Over 40? Five Tests you need right now.”
You should read the whole piece, but he concludes:
So, if you work in the media and want to do a report on what medical tests you need to do, here are the 5 Tests You Must Do Today! (You can imagine a scary picture of me shaking my head here if you wish!)
- Imagine this was a senior politician telling you this information. How uncritically would you accept it? Are there any conflicts of interest? Use your same sense of scepticism.
- Is there a consensus of opinion? Do GPs and specialists agree? What do major guidelines say?
- Will doing this test make me live a longer healthier life? Show me the evidence. And ask someone else to have a look at the evidence.
- What are the harms from this test, and any subsequent tests or treatment needed?
- If you’re going to interview someone whose life was saved by having this test, interview someone else who has suffered side effects or complications. (But beware false balance – see point 2 above!)
And the piece adds a nice plug for our work at the end, reading: “Croakey suggests that for further reading on this issue, Gary Schwitzer’s (US-based) blog is a great place to start https://www.healthnewsreview.org/blog/.”
Thanks, mates.
————————-
Follow us on Facebook, and on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer
https://twitter.com/healthnewsrevu
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
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Comments are closed.
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