A New York Times newsletter headline writer tried to be cute: No, it’s not so simple. And, no, the study did not find that those who drank moderate amounts of coffee have a lower mortality risk than non-coffee drinkers. That is a cause-and-effect statement, and this observational study didn’t find that, didn’t prove that, […]
Breaking News! What does that mean? Besides sinking to the level of the old TV news style of “If it bleeds, it leads” newscasts. But the New York Times trotted out that tired old trope by tweeting, ‘Breaking News: A brain implant allowed a fully paralyzed man to communicate using his thoughts, a newly published […]
The Star Tribune newspaper reports: Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins is on the COVID-19 reserve list after testing positive for COVID-19 and will miss Sunday night’s game against the Packers. … Cousins, who is unvaccinated, was placed on the COVID-19 reserve list as a close contact early in training camp after (one backup quarterback) tested […]
My productivity dropped off for a number of reasons in 2021, but here are my five best blog posts from a smaller than usual total overall. Top spot Cure for Type 1 diabetes? We’ve been down this road before with NY Times. Key excerpt: “It is the framing and the emphasis of the journalism by […]
“A Cure for Type 1 Diabetes? For One Man, It Seems to Have Worked,” blared the November 27, 2021 New York Times headline. It may have reminded old-timers of another story by the same reporter, Gina Kolata, on the front page of the Times 23 years ago, on May 3, 1998, which included unchallenged projections […]
Shoddy, incomplete, fawning news coverage of screening tests is one of the most clearly established problems in health news coverage – something HealthNewsReview.org has revealed countless times over the past 15 years. A public relations news release 22 days ago – from “a healthcare company whose mission is to detect cancer early” – touted study […]
Two new journalistic analyses of 2020-2021 pandemic news coverage were released this week. I was interviewed in each of them. Science journalist Faye Flam produced a new episode for her “Follow the Science” podcast, with funding from the Society for Professional Journalists. She interviewed me, David Leonhardt of the New York Times and David Wallace-Wells of […]
Although I am advancing rapidly into almost complete retirement, there are some days/weeks when I can’t refrain from pointing out some of the troubling health care news I see. This is one such week. First, the COVID zombie news My local Star Tribune newspaper delivered this front page news: University of Minnesota, Mayo report COVID-fighting success […]
Should publications that post op-ed pieces tell us more about who wrote the op-ed and what their potential biases and conflicts of interest might be? I’m in the camp that answers a resounding YES. Till Bruckner is, too. He writes for Transparify, an organization that rates “the financial transparency of major think tanks.” He is […]
Milwaukee oncologist Michael Thompson, MD, wrote to me yesterday morning (February 10) about an article – “New Study Suggests Apple Watch Heart Rate Sensor Can Predict COVID-19 Up to a Week Before a Swab Test” – promoted on Twitter by MacRumors.com. The story was about the so-called Warrior Watch Study at Mount Sinai Medical Center in […]
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
Tips & Resources for Analyzing Health Care Claims
