Sorry I’ve been a little slow with posts in the past few days. First, there’s digging out from under a foot of new snow in the Twin Cities. Second, there’s digging out from under an avalanche of cardiology-related news coming out of the American College of Cardiology meeting. It reminds me of the excellent paper […]
3/9/2006A study in this month’s American Journal of Managed Care (not to be published online until next week) confirms some of what I’ve reported in earlier studies: local TV health news is troublesome. (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a story on the study.) Researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison analyzed […]
2 3/4/2006CJRDaily.org features an interview with Wall Street Journal health columnist Tara Parker-Pope. The interview focuses on her opinion that “a flawed communications effort led to widespread misinterpretation of results by the news media and the public” regarding the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) and its findings on how low-fat diets, consumption of calcium and vitamin D, […]
3/1/2006The wall that once existed between news and advertising has many gaping holes in it. The Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog website says that some readers of the Charlotte News & Observer were bothered by the paper’s handling of two pieces on the GlaxoSmithKline drug company this past Sunday. The website says: “Big pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline […]
2/23/2006The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee dismissed its medical reporter Kimberly Kane last week. Kane had worked at the station for seven years. The station’s news director did not respond to the newspaper’s e-mails asking about the reporter’s status. The TV reporter told the newspaper in an e-mail: “When the most recent administration […]
2/22/2006University of Minnesota researchers announced Sunday that they were able to reverse diabetes in monkeys by transplanting insulin-producing cells from pigs. The Star Tribune’s sub-head read, “A new study raises the potential for an endless supply of insulin-producing cells to cure the disease that affects 20 million Americans.” Mind you, this work was done on […]
2/14/2006The Center for Science in the Public Interest offers a newsletter called âIntegrity in Science Watch.â? You can subscribe by writing to: science@cspinet.org. Last weekâs newsletter had this item: New York Times Fails To Disclose Researcher’s Ties to Antidepressant Makers A new study published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine showed an […]
2/12/2006Thereâs a thoughtful news criticism piece on the CJR Daily website. Itâs headlined, âA Heaping Serving of Baked Kolata, Hold the Caveats.â? It questions why the New York Times put on its front page Gina Kolataâs story on a study questioning the impact of low-fat diets on postmenopausal women. Meantime, the piece explains that the […]
12/21/2005The blog will be on hold for a few days over the holidays. But first, here is my list of the top ten stories in health, health care, medicine and science over this past year. 1. Conflicts of interest in health care, medicine, research (just one example: the recent news from the Cleveland Clinic) 2. […]
12/16/2005A special tip of the hat to ABC News for last night’s one-hour special, “Peter Jennings Reporting: Breakdown — America’s Health Insurance Crisis.” It was the last report Jennings worked on before he died. “Over the course of Peter’s long career at ABC News he made more than 60 prime-time documentaries, many of them covering […]
Tips & Resources for Analyzing Health Care Claims