Academic Sensationalism
A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine reveals that media sensationalism in health issues may be driven by press releases from academics rather than by journalists. In a fascinating study of 200 press releases from academic medical centres, the study found that nearly three quarters of the press releases claimed explicit benefits for human health, even though 40% of them were clearly limited “pilot” studies. Many of these statistically dubious studies carried no warnings about the nature of the study, leaving the impression that they were more powerful than they were. 29% of the press releases openly exaggerated the significance of their study’s findings. They did not study reporting in the media and so were unable to link these exaggerated press releases to sensationalism in the media.
Once again, this demonstrates that there is no such thing as an “Ivory Tower” of Academia. Scientists play to the media as much as the media plays to the public. While we may believe that scientists are dispassionate creatures who are interested only in facts, the reality is that those facts often play second fiddle to our own opinions. I confess to be equally guilty here. The MacDoctor attempts to view things with an even hand, but the reality is that everything I write is coloured by my world view. Even the more academic blog sites can take on a proselytizing air while purporting to be balanced. And don’t get me started on editorial bias in medical journals.
If scientific viewpoints are coloured and partisan, what hope has the media of being even-handed?
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May 6 09 1:52 pm
In some ways I’m not surprised. My experience with press releases is that get sexed up a little bit at each stage of the process. You start with the researcher. Then the PR people make it a bit more sensational. Then the journalists make it a bit more sensational. It’s a wonder that anything published in the media has any resemblance to the research work done
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May 7 09 1:26 am
Well said. Another prob I think from my experience is that doctors often opt out of the debate on alternative medicine such as chiropractic or homeopathy by stating that until RCT level studies are done to their satisfaction that those other health disciplines are basically witch-doctors, and any benefits to their patients are mostly due to the placebo effect. However from the lay patient’s perspective, word-of-mouth or actually receiving relief from their complaint without drugs or surgery will seal the deal in most cases, and RCT studies are often not as unbiased as people like to think, as sometimes you know, money does talk.
May 8 09 1:11 pm
It would be interesting to know what the requirements or expectations are for scientists and media releases i.e. numbers or perceived exposure for their organisation in the media. This of course would not excuse their actions, but could be an interesting incentive if so.
May 8 09 11:51 pm
It is a difficulty, and I’d say one way of mitigating it is to stop the practice of conducting science via press release which means unpublished findings or research presented at conferences are not released prior to peer review/publishing. In addition, the re-institution of specialist science reporters would go a long way to helping the matter too as it’s utterly confusing to the average person to have highly speculative findings appear (always have to watch for that word ‘may’) and then another, often conflicting one, appear the next week in the newspaper. Both of those things would really help place the research into perspective. It’s not surprising though that medical researchers and other scientists are enthusiastic about there results, it’s only human to be biased about the results of your endeavours. Bias doesn’t always have to be because of opinions or other influences although that could be the case. Dr. Ben Goldacre talks about this and other issues about science a lot on his Bad Science blog, it’s really helped me get to grip with health reporting. http://www.healthnewsreview.org/ is also another site where stories are rated for content. I think the take home message here is don’t believe everything you read basically, well not until you see something solid there you can rely on.
“until RCT level studies are done to their satisfaction that those other health disciplines are basically witch-doctors”
I think it’s rather more often that that RCT studies that predictably show no effect, or an adverse effect quite rightly mean they are not adopted as an intervention. Doesn’t stop anyone promoting the stuff as they just ignore or try and explain away poor or negative findings. I’ll cover chiropractic first because that does have an evidence base for lower back pain and is accepted, the only thing is that from what I’ve read it’s no better than other interventions like physio but worthwhile having as an option even so. As for the rest, some of it does approach witch doctoring like all the ‘energy medicine’ stuff that appears to be all sciency on the surface but in effect is a modern day version of laying on of hands. Homeopathy is a substance diluted until it isn’t even physically possible to have even a molecule of the original substance there and remains unchanged from it’s 18th century origins. There is no possible way it can work because it’s just basically water or sugar pills, if I want a condition treated I’d rather at least use something that might work instead of wasting my money on something useless while the condition I’m having problems with continues to progress. The problem I have with the word of mouth stuff is firstly that there are a number of flaws – many conditions are naturally self-limiting or are worse sometimes, better others so it doesn’t always mean that what you used had an effect and it’s a waste of money mostly. In addition, if the condition needs treatment it might be that it progresses and becomes more serious while a person tries this and that instead of going for something that is tested effective. Given that most of the anecdotes I’ve heard are of the variety “my aunt’s cousins daughter tried this and it seemed to work” they are very weak and you only know what a person felt at the time. Ever played Chinese whispers? Imagine that and how stories may alter on retelling. You simply would never know the whole story or how it really panned out. Don’t forget the money imperative, if it exists, applies to both sides. It’s not being handed out for free and profits are made in alternative medicine as well.