The newspaper says this column was part of an ongoing series looking at the reality behind health claims. We love such efforts. Of course, it’s what we do every day on this site!
Efforts like Jeremy Singer-Vine’s Research Report column in the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times’ Healthy Skeptic column, the Consumer Reports AdWatch series, and this Chicago Tribune series could be a model for other news organizations for devoting more space to questioning the myriad claims made about health care interventions.
Costs weren’t mentioned and we wish they had been to help drive home the point of questionable cost effectiveness.
Again, the FDA says it’s "not aware" of clinical studies showing lipodissolve is effective or safe.
Again cites the FDA: "Unexpected side effects include permanent scarring, skin deformation, and deep, painful knots under the skin in areas where the lipodissolve treatments were injected."
States that "the FDA says it’s ‘not aware’ of clinical studies showing lipodissolve is effective or safe."
The story only quoted an FDA official. This is really a minor quibble in this case, but we wish we had heard from at least one clinician.
The story’s sole focus was on the FDA warnings about lipodissolve, so in this case it wasn’t entirely necessary to look at other options. Not applicable.
Although the story didn’t explictly discuss how widespread was the use of these shots, it’s clear from the story that they’re widely available.
The story wasn’t make any claims of novelty. Not applicable.
We can’t be sure if the story relied solely on a news release.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
A great read on this weekend’s NYT claims of a cure for Type 1.
Cure for Type 1 diabetes? We’ve been down this road before with NY Times https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/11/cure-for-type-1-diabetes-weve-been-down-this-road-before-with-ny-times/
"But it is the framing and the emphasis of the #journalism by a leading science journalist at a leading newspaper that demands scrutiny. It has an impact on readers and on sick people that may cause harm by promoting false hope about extremely preliminary research"
👍👏💪 truth https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1465399358137024518
Why we should still miss healthnewsreview. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1465399358137024518
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