Gary Schwitzer is the Publisher and founder of HealthNewsReview.org. He tweets as @garyschwitzer.
The CBS Morning News packed so much hyperbolic punch into one piece, it was breathtaking. They promoted the piece as “only seen on CBS This Morning,” and thank goodness for that.
Keep in mind that the story admitted that the compound hasn’t been tested in humans yet. In that context, let these claims soak in:
It is important for journalists to track research progress in the midst of the opioid crisis. But journalists who don’t report on these issues full-time should not be allowed by their editors and managers to run up to the winding stream of science, dip their toes in, and then run back and file a breakthrough story with no regard for the downstream work of science to get from here to there with such wild claims. The decades-long boulevard of broken dreams of past attempts to develop painkiller alternatives cannot be forgotten. Many looked great early in the research. The mechanism made sense, building on what’s known about pain pathways. Some continued to look terrific in animal research. And then the human trials delivered the bad news.
“It could be five years or so before the drug makes it through clinical trials to see if they confirm its claims.” So this story was free publicity five years too early.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Why fact-checking is not enough to prevent the spread of misleading health care news...@HealthNewsRevu https://t.co/fzC2JbDYGV
Simply fact-checking an article "fails to capture questions of nuance and context that arise – or should arise – whenever evaluating medical evidence." https://t.co/HrYkGj12q1
We wrote only about efforts that label themselves as “fact-checking” projects. You’ll see that if you read the piece.
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