Here’s some of what was missing in the story:
There’s been a lot of prostate cancer news in the past two weeks, largely because the American Urological Association annual conference was just held. But are we really telling men something they need to know with a story like this? Or are we just turning up the force on the firehose of information that we flood readers with?
Not applicable. Cost is not much of an issue here.
We think a story like this should present raw numbers.
So, instead of:
Why not explain 38% of what baseline? And 51% of what baseline?
Projected benefits may be exaggerated by presenting them in the manner of this story.
No drug – not even acetaminophen – is without risk. So, when the story starts in cavalier fashion – “Pop a Tylenol…” it should also find time and space somewhere to mention that popping pills comes with some risk – especially given that the safe daily maximal dose of acetaminophen has been lowered in recent years.
There was NO evaluation of the quality of the evidence. There is not one word about the limitations of such observational studies – on walking or on acetaminophen use.
Aside from general problems with adjusting for confounders in observational studies, both exposure measures–exercise and acetaminophen use–were self-reported and thus of uncertain validity. Also, interpreting “daily use” is difficult–is this one pill a day, the maximal dose, somewhere in between? Do you have to use acetaminophen for 5 consecutive years or just a total of 5 years? Another issue related to acetaminophen is that for a variety of medical conditions (kidney disease, heart failure, gastrointestinal bleeding), the non-steroidals are contraindicated and so patients are preferentially placed on acetaminophen. Sicker patients may also be less likely to be screened for cancer, so the observed “protective” effect could be quite spurious.
Further, the column lifted material from another news source (MedPageToday):
The casual reader may assume that the study actually analyzed such physiological reactions, which it did not. The researchers projected interesting hypotheses, but they should have been labeled as such.
We do think there was a subtle element of disease mongering in this story.
The facts at the end are all correct – “Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. According to the National Cancer Institute, about 32,050 men died from prostate cancer in 2010 and 217,000 new cases were diagnosed. More than 2.2 million men in the U.S. are living with prostate cancer.”
But there is no context given about prostate cancers not being the same as other cancers – that many are not killers – that many men die WITH prostate cancer, not FROM it.
And crediting acetaminophen for a “51% reduced risk of developing an aggressive form of the disease” without every quantifying how relatively few men develop an aggressive form of the disease among the 217,000 new cases diagnosed each year is not helpful. 51% of what?
No independent expert source was cited to comment on either finding.
Neither finding was put into the context of other treatment/prevention approaches for prostate cancer. For example, the 5-alpha reductase inhibitor drugs (finasteride and dutasteride) have been rigorously evaluated for chemoprevention.
Not applicable. There’s no question about the availability of the two “interventions” – walking and acetaminophen.
The story explained that there’s been prior research in both fields – studying effects of anti-inflammatory drugs and walking on prostate cancer.
So it didn’t inappropriately paint either pursuit as totally new.
Not applicable because no one was directly interviewed and quoted. The story did draw from another news source – MedPage Today – but we don’t know if any original reporting was done.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
We’ve written about the hype of liquid biopsies for years (see link in comment below). And now this…. https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/12/medicare-shouldnt-cover-liquid-biopsies-early-cancer-detection/
Case counts still matter. “(There) are stories that may not be told adequately if only hospitalizations and deaths are emphasized.” @garyschwitzer interviewed by @dbauder of @AP. https://apnews.com/article/omicron-changing-news-outlets-covid-data-da9272f7c4c8a109c3bfb56bed9e9c76
My friend Gary @garyschwitzer wrote to his city council representative in a Minnesota town about a Viva Las Vegas event scheduled for January.
The response he got seems to perfectly capture where we are now.
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/12/2021-ends-with-covid-craziness-in-sports-and-politics/
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