Our Review Summary
A federal task force has issued a recommendation to limit the daily ingestion of low-dose aspirin among Americans to individuals with a clear risk of heart attack or stroke. This story delivers that message effectively but lacks the quantitative specificity that would have helped readers/listeners fully understand the possible benefits or harms of continuing their aspirin-a-day habit. While a brief radio story may well be unable to be that specific, providing the additional information on the outlet’s text version of the story would be helpful.
Why This Matters
Many individuals with low risk of heart attack or stroke now take daily, low-dose aspirin in preventive mode. If such a practice is—at best—useless or—at worst—harmful, folks need to know that. This story makes a solid effort to inform.
Criteria
Not Applicable
Cost is not a component of this story, but it does not appear to be as relevant an issue to this piece compared with other stories.
Not Satisfactory
The story is clear about age ranges and health conditions that may make taking aspirin useful but does not offer any quantitative translation of the extent of benefits for these groups. It similarly doesn’t make the quantitative case for the dearth of benefits for individuals who fall outside of these conditions. The recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) suggest that the absolute benefit is in fact quite modest, unless you are already at high risk for cardiovascular diseases.
Satisfactory
The article highlights the risks of taking aspirin daily, in particular the risk of bleeding. The article even brings in an independent source, Dr. Nissen, who discusses the bleeding risks. The story would have been stronger had it helped the reader/listener understand the likelihood of those harms, as the ubiquity of aspirin use in our culture may lead individuals to downplay the medicine’s possible harms. However, the story does enough to clear our bar here.
Not Satisfactory
The reader/listener will find no information about how the USPSTF utilized evidence to reach its recommendation. It would’ve been helpful for the article to contrast the new guidelines with the previous ones in place. In particular, what new evidence prompted the USPSTF to change their recommendations?
Satisfactory
To its credit, the story offers a narrative that is the antithesis of disease-mongering. Its primary goal is to inform the public that a task force of experts is recommending less use of a common, over-the-counter medicine. The daily use of aspirin, for most reasonably healthy Americans, appears to be a “wash”; that is, both its benefits and harms will be negligible for most of us. That last point is mentioned but could have been explained a bit more thoroughly.
Satisfactory
The story doesn’t delve into potential conflicts of interest, but it does point out that the task force is an independent panel, and interviewed Dr. Nissen who is not part of the panel.
Satisfactory
The main point of the story is a recommendation to modify existing aspirin use habits. So it nicely sets up a comparison between current practice and recommended behavior. The story also nods to other approaches and medications (e.g. cholesterol and blood pressure drugs).
Satisfactory
Low-dose aspirin is readily available, of course, and the story makes this clear. The story suggests that the typical healthy American NOT avail him/herself of this resource.
Satisfactory
The story makes it clear that the USPSTF recommendation differs from current practice among healthy adults.
Satisfactory
We think it’s clear that the story is not based solely on a news release.
Total Score: 7 of 9 Satisfactory
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