This extremely brief television news segment about a non-surgical treatment for morbid obesity manages to describe the procedure, contrast it with conventional treatment, and indicate that it is being studied and not yet available.
Yet as the ratings here show, both the brevity of the story and the way the time is used leave the story short of journalistic best practices.
At the very least, the report should have:
Ideally it also would have explained a bit more about the findings so far–which patients have been helped the most, what the side effects have been, whether there have been any surgical complications and so on. These findings should have been compared to what is known about conventional gastric bypass surgery.
The segment failed to disclose the cost (or expected cost) of the procedure.
The segment does nothing to report results, other than to say that on average patients in the trials lost nearly 40 percent of their body weight.
The story fails to report possible harms of the treatment. While it enumerates the ways in which harms are less likely to occur with the non-surgical method, it says nothing about the harms that pertain to both. These include weight regain as patients find ways to consume high amounts of calories anyway, and nutritional deficiencies.
The segment fails to report any evidence from the ongoing trials. The only figure cited is that patients can lose up to 40 percent of their body weight. The segment fails to say, as the press release does, that weight loss in this group has been less than in those who have conventional bypass surgery.
The story does nothing to exaggerate the dangers of morbid obesity.
The segment quotes the one patient who has had the procedure, and one of the physicians treating her.
The reporter should have talked to an independent source.
The fact that the patent-holder on the procedure funded the trials should have been disclosed.
The segment correctly says the main option for obesity of over 100 excess pounds is conventional bypass surgery.
Other interventions for weight loss that are sometimes successful for other populations, such as diet and exercisse, have not been shown effective for the morbidly obese.
The story is very clear that this procedure has been performed only twice in the U.S., and has been tested on over 40 people overseas. It says the procedure is not approved for use in the U.S.
The segment properly reports that the procedure has been done on only two people in the U.S. and around 40 people abroad.
We can’t be sure about the extent to which the story relied on the press release. We do know that the story uses the same patient that is named in the news release. We also know that no independent expert source was interviewed.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
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.
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