Our one criticism is for the headline writer, who had to frame it as “hope for a future AIDS cure” despite these caveats in the body of the story:
A competing MedPage Today story had this headline: “HIV-Resistant T Cells on Horizon.” That story said that the researchers “cautioned reporters not to use the word “cure” at this early stage.
But this AP story still used the word “cure” 12 times.
It is possible to report on very preliminary research – even involving only six people – and even on a topic like HIV/AIDS – and to do so in a reasonable way. This story achieved that goal – despite the repeated use of “cure”.
We like this story’s approach. The story could have easily stated that it’s just too early to know – end of story. Instead, it stated:
The story gave very specific details on what happened to trial subjects’ cell counts – and over what span of time. Of course it’s too soon to know if those lab results will translate into differences in the peoples’ lives.
But a MedPage Today story carried a more significant statement from a member of the conference program committee: “We do not know yet from the experiments whether there is any antiviral activity.”
Good job in saying: “The only side effect was two days of flulike symptoms. It will take longer to determine safety”
Lots of details on what the evidence showed.
Many caveats included.
There could have been some more, though. A MedPageToday story stated “all six patients involved in the study had well-controlled HIV, so it was impossible to see if there would be a therapeutic effect.” That same story also noted that another presentation at the same meeting gave results of a similar process in mouse research – but the protective effect wore off over time. This AP story could have included that same information to be more complete.
The story also could have included a reminder that the research was published only as a short abstract and presented at a scientific conference – and that it had not undergone the kind of rigorous peer review that a journal article would be expected to undergo.
Several independent sources were quoted.
Within the realm of other gene therapy attempts, the story explained, “This is the first time researchers have permanently deleted a human gene and infused the altered cells back into patients. Other gene therapy attempts tried to add a gene or muffle the activity of one, and have not worked against HIV”
The story made it clear that this was a very preliminary report.
The story explained this was the first test of the new approach and that a report on a second, federally-funded study was due in another day.
It’s clear that the story did not rely on a news release.
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
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