Published: June 26, 2008 06:08 pm            

Michael O'Connor: Why do (news) fools fall in love with health stories?

“Coming up after the break, a new treatment promises … ”

To rid us of cancer, increase our life spans, plump our wrinkles, stop age spots, reduce our fat, eliminate age spots, remove embarrassing tattoos, make us all good looking and generally cure us of whatever ails us.

News media outlets love health stories. Magazines like the Journal of the American Medical Association or Lancet publish research on a regular basis, and health reporters scour their advance copies for stories that will intrigue readers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health want the public to know how they spend the tax money that funds them, so they send out lots of releases.

Outlets that have the time and resources can assign a reporter to wade through all the jargon and distill the essence of the various studies into news items for public consumption.

Those that don’t have the time or resources use the wire services, which rely on contributing members to provide the stories.

Frankly, we do a lousy job of reporting in this area.

The end product for the average media consumers is a mish-mash of seemingly contradictory information. Drinking coffee is bad for you. Drinking coffee is good for you. Drinking just the right amount of coffee is the best.

My old newspaper went through a spell of having a health page every week. We’d pull stories and graphics from the Associated Press wire and put together a nice little package for our readers. It took up space and allowed us to believe we provided useful information to our readers.

But those stories weren’t well examined. We trusted that AP had done its homework. We didn’t have time to look up the studies and see what they were really reporting.

For instance, many studies are based on correlations. Take 6,000 people, run their habits through a computer using sophisticated statistical analysis, and voilá, it appears a significant number of the 6K who drink three cups of coffee a day have significantly less of some sort of ailment. But correlations only indicate a possible relationship, not cause and effect. More study has to be done to confirm the tie.

Another poorly reported story has to do with drugs for which multiple claims are made. Manufacturers often do “end points” research, testing for two or more results. But what’s not mentioned is that only one result must be obtained for the study to be a success. So you might test for lower cholesterol and reduced heart attacks. If cholesterol is lowered, but no real change is noted in the number of heart attacks, the company may report that the drug is effective for both. This report will be breathlessly picked up by news outlets and spread far and wide.

If you’re skeptical when you read of miracle cures and amazing treatments, you should be. If not, develop some skepticism.

Check the information out before you act on it. Look the studies up, or talk to your physician. He or she may not have seen the study, but a good physician will be willing to discuss it with you and point out the vital information we in news failed to provide you.



Michael O’Connor may be reached at editor@trcle.com.

        

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