April 4, 2018

Making sense of health news based on animal studies: An update to our toolkit

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New expanded toolkit primer

To help our readers make sense of the claims, we have published an expanded primer in our toolkit: Why you should be cautious of health claims based on animal and lab studies.

In it, you’ll find an explanation of why scientists conduct animal studies, why journalists must be cautious to not overstate the findings, examples of good and bad news coverage, and tips to avoid common pitfalls when writing about animal studies.

You’ll also find a very succinct analysis from Susan Molchan, MD, in particular when she speaks about Alzheimer’s disease studies involving mice.

“They’ve cured mouseheimer’s disease I don’t know how many times now,” Molchan says.

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