Last week, I read with interest a New York Times piece headlined, “The Trials of Stem Cell Therapy,” with the subhead: “Stem Cells: Plenty of Hope, but Halting Progress.” I thought that was an appropriately cautious introduction to this issue, which has received so much hype.
“Halting” is defined as:
The story asked the question, “Why, then, are there not more success stories, given all the money poured into stem cell research?”
A headline again pulled me in – as headlines are made to do – when, 6 days later, the Science/Health section of my Sunday Star Tribune newspaper published the following story:
I thought to myself, “How can two such different stories come out within days of each other?” One leads with “halting progress” while the other trumpets “Starts To Show Results” with a subhead about a heart patient who now goes dancing.
But then I realized IT WAS THE SAME STORY – just with a different headline apparently slapped on top by someone at the Star Tribune who was cobbling together pieces grabbed from others in order to flesh out its Sunday Science/Health section.
Did someone at the Strib miss the questioning tone of the original New York Times piece? Maybe this is what happens when one publishes a Science/Health section that is almost always nearly filled with stuff that your staff didn’t write.
————————-
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer
https://twitter.com/healthnewsrevu
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
The tale of two “negative” studies. Or, how spin is applied to make research findings look more impressive. A must read. https://johnmandrola.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-negative-studies
The @nytimes chose to interview one of the editors of the @AnnalsofIM (publisher of this paper) who "gushed with extraordinary glee: It’s huge! There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30%."
Turns out coffee is not one of those few things despite all that glee. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1533202075928215558
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