Professional and popular views of chronic fatigue syndrome.

OBJECTIVE--To study the coverage of the chronic fatigue syndrome in the popular and professional press. DESIGN--Search of all original research papers on the chronic fatigue syndrome published in British journals from 1980 onwards and of professional trade papers, national newspapers, and women''s magazines. Interviews with six medical journalists. SETTING--British scientific, medical, and popular press. RESULTS--37 (49%) articles in research journals did not favour organic causes and 23 (31%) favoured organic causes. By contrast 31 (55%) articles in the medical trade press and 118 (69%) in national newspapers and women''s magazines favoured organic causes. CONCLUSIONS--Press coverage of chronic fatigue syndrome has amplified and distorted divisions in the research community concerning the chronic fatigue syndrome. Articles in the press concentrate on a simple medical model of illness reinforcing the stigma of psychological illness and dissatisfaction with traditional medical authority.     

Quality of pharmaceutical industry press releases based on original research

Background

Press releases are a popular vehicle to disseminate health information to the lay media. While the quality of press releases issued by scientific conferences and medical journals has been questioned, no efforts to assess pharmaceutical industry press releases have been made. Therefore, we sought to systematically examine pharmaceutical company press releases about original research for measures of quality.

Methodolgy/Principal Findings

Press releases issued by the ten top selling, international pharmaceutical companies in the year 2005 were selected for evaluation. A total of 1028 electronic press releases were issued and 235 were based on original research. More than half (59%) reported results presented at a scientific meeting. Twenty-one percent of releases were not explicit about the source of original data. While harms or adverse events were commonly cited (76%), study limitations were rarely noted (6%). Almost one-third (29%) of releases did not quantify study results. Studies presented in abstract form were subsequently published within at least 20 months in 53% of cases.

Conclusions

Pharmaceutical company press releases frequently report basic study details. However, readers should be cautioned by the preliminary nature of the data and lack of identified limitations. Methods to improve the reporting and interpretation of drug company press releases are desirable to prevent misleading media coverage.     

Nothing but the truth

Many scientists blame the media for sensationalising scientific findings, but new research suggests that things can go awry at all levels, from the scientific report to the press officer to the journalist.Everything gives you cancer, at least if you believe what you read in the news or see on TV. Fortunately, everything also cures cancer, from red wine to silver nanoparticles. Of course the truth lies somewhere in between, and scientists might point out that these claims are at worst dangerous sensationalism and at best misjudged journalism. These kinds of media story, which inflate the risks and benefits of research, have led to a mistrust of the press among some scientists. But are journalists solely at fault when science reporting goes wrong, as many scientists believe [1]? New research suggests it is time to lay to rest the myth that the press alone is to blame. The truth is far more nuanced and science reporting can go wrong at many stages, from the researchers to the press officers to the diverse producers of news.Many science communication researchers suggest that science in the media is not as distorted as scientists believe, although they do admit that science reporting tends to under-represent risks and over-emphasize benefits [2]. “I think there is a lot less of this [misreported science] than some scientists presume. I actually think that there is a bit of laziness in the narrative around science and the media,” said Fiona Fox, Director of the UK Science Media Centre (London, UK), an independent press office that serves as a liaison between scientists and journalists. “My bottom line is that, certainly in the UK, a vast majority of journalists report science accurately in a measured way, and it''s certainly not a terrible story. Having said that, lots of things do go wrong for a number of reasons.”Fox said that the centre sees everything from fantastic press releases to those that completely misrepresent and sensationalize scientific findings. They have applauded news stories that beautifully reported the caveats and limitations of a particular scientific study, but they have also cringed as a radio talk show pitted a massive and influential body of research against a single non-scientist sceptic.“You ask, is it the press releases, is it the universities, is it the journalists? The truth is that it''s all three,” Fox said. “But even admitting that is admitting more complexity. So anyone who says that scientists and university press officers deliver perfectly accurate science and the media misrepresent it […] that really is not the whole story.”Scientists and scientific institutions today invest more time and effort into communicating with the media than they did a decade ago, especially given the modern emphasis on communicating scientific results to the public [3]. Today, there are considerable pressures on scientists to reach out and even ‘sell their work'' to public relations officers and journalists. “For every story that a journalist has hyped and sensationalized, there will be another example of that coming directly from a press release that we [scientists] hyped and sensationalized,” Fox said. “And for every time that that was a science press officer, there will also be a science press officer who will tell you, ‘I did a much more nuanced press release, but the academic wanted me to over claim for it''.”Although science public relations has helped to put scientific issues on the public agenda, there are also dangers inherent in the process of translation from original research to press release to media story. Previous research in the area of science communication has focused on conflicting scientific and media values, and the effects of science media on audiences. However, studies have raised awareness of the role of press releases in distorting information from the lab bench to published news [4].In a 2011 study of genetic research claims made in press releases and mainstream print media, science communication researcher Jean Brechman, who works at the US advertising and marketing research firm Gallup & Robinson, found evidence that scientific knowledge gets distorted as it is “filtered and translated for mass communication” with “slippages and inconsistencies” occurring along the way, such that the end message does not accurately represent the original science [4]. Although Brechman and colleagues found a concerning point of distortion in the transition between press release and news article, they also observed a misrepresentation of the original science in a significant portion of the press releases themselves.In a previous study, Brechman and his colleagues had also concluded that “errors commonly attributed to science journalists, such as lack of qualifying details and use of oversimplified language, originate in press releases.” Even more worrisome, as Fox told a Nature commentary author in 2009, public relations departments are increasingly filling the need of the media for quick content [5].Fox believes that a common characteristic of misrepresented science in press releases and the media is the over-claiming of preliminary studies. As such, the growing prevalence of rapid, short-format publications that publicize early results might be exacerbating the problem. Research has also revealed that over-emphasis on the beneficial effects of experimental medical treatments seen in press releases and news coverage, often called ‘spin'', can stem from bias in the abstract of the original scientific article itself [6]. Such findings warrant a closer examination of the language used in scientific articles and abstracts, as the wording and ‘spin'' of conclusions drawn by researchers in their peer-reviewed publications might have significant impacts on subsequent media coverage.Of course, some stories about scientific discoveries are just not easy to tell owing to their complexity. They are “messy, complicated, open to interpretation and ripe for misreporting,” as Fox wrote in a post on her blog On Science and the Media (fionafox.blogspot.com). They do not fit the single-page blog post or the short press release. Some scientific experiments and the peer-reviewed articles and media stories that flow from them are inherently full of caveats, contexts and conflicting results and cannot be communicated in a short format [7].In a 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, Marco Bertamini at the University of Liverpool (UK) and Marcus R. Munafo at the University of Bristol (UK) suggested that a shift toward “bite-size” publications in areas of science such as psychology might be promoting more single-study models of research, fewer efforts to replicate initial findings, curtailed detailing of previous relevant work and bias toward “false alarm” or false-positive results [7]. The authors pointed out that larger, multi-experiment studies are typically published in longer papers with larger sample sizes and tend to be more accurate. They also suggested that this culture of brief, single-study reports based on small data sets will lead to the contamination of the scientific literature with false-positive findings. Unfortunately, false science far more easily enters the literature than leaves it [8].One famous example is that of Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 publication in The Lancet claimed to link autism with the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination. It took years of work by many scientists, and the aid of an exposé by British investigative reporter Brian Deer, to finally force retraction of the paper. However, significant damage had already been done and many parents continue to avoid immunizing their children out of fear. Deer claims that scientific journals were a large part of the problem: “[D]uring the many years in which I investigated the MMR vaccine controversy, the worst and most inexcusable reporting on the subject, apart from the original Wakefield claims in the Lancet, was published in Nature and republished in Scientific American,” he said. “There is an enormous amount of hypocrisy among those who accuse the media of misreporting science.”What factors are promoting this shift to bite-size science? One is certainly the increasing pressure and competition to publish many papers in high-impact journals, which prefer short articles with new, ground-breaking findings.“Bibliometrics is playing a larger role in academia in deciding who gets a job and who gets promoted,” Bertamini said. “In general, if things are measured by citations, there is pressure to publish as much and as often as possible, and also to focus on what is surprising; thus, we can see how this may lead to an inflation in the number of papers but also an increase in publication bias.”Bertamini points to the real possibility that measured effects emerging from a group of small samples can be much larger than the real effect in the total population. “This variability is bad enough, but it is even worse when you consider that what is more likely to be written up and accepted for publication are exactly the larger differences,” he explained.Alongside the endless pressure to publish, the nature of the peer-reviewed publication process itself prioritizes exciting and statistically impressive results. Fluke scientific discoveries and surprising results are often considered newsworthy, even if they end up being false-positives. The bite-size article aggravates this problem in what Bertamini fears is a growing similarity between academic writing and media reporting: “The general media, including blogs and newspapers, will of course focus on what is curious, funny, controversial, and so on. Academic papers must not do the same, and the quality control system is there to prevent that.”The real danger is that, with more than one million scientific papers published every year, journalists can tend to rely on only a few influential journals such as Science and Nature for science news [3]. Although the influence and reliability of these prestigious journals is well established, the risk that journalists and other media producers might be propagating the exciting yet preliminary results published in their pages is undeniable.Fox has personal experience of the consequences of hype surrounding surprising but preliminary science. Her sister has chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a debilitating medical condition with no known test or cure. When Science published an article in 2009 linking CFS with a viral agent, Fox was naturally both curious and sceptical [9]. “I thought even if I knew that this was an incredibly significant finding, the fact that nobody had ever found a biological link before also meant that it would have to be replicated before patients could get excited,” Fox explained. “And of course what happened was all the UK journalists were desperate to splash it on the front page because it was so surprising and so significant and could completely revolutionize the approach to CFS, the treatment and potential cure.”Fox observed that while some journalists placed the caveats of the study deep within their stories, others left them out completely. “I gather in the USA it was massive, it was front page news and patients were going online to try and find a test for this particular virus. But in the end, nobody could replicate it, literally nobody. A Dutch group tried, Imperial College London, lots of groups, but nobody could replicate it. And in the end, the paper has been withdrawn from Science.”For Fox, the fact that the paper was withdrawn, incidentally due to a finding of contamination in the samples, was less interesting than the way that the paper was reported by journalists. “We would want any journal press officer to literally in the first paragraph be highlighting the fact that this was such a surprising result that it shouldn''t be splashed on the front page,” she said. Of course to the journalist, waiting for the study to be replicated is anathema in a culture that values exciting and new findings. “To the scientific community, the fact that it is surprising and new means that we should calm down and wait until it is proved,” Fox warned.So, the media must also take its share of the blame when it comes to distorting science news. Indeed, research analysing science coverage in the media has shown that stories tend to exaggerate preliminary findings, use sensationalist terms, avoid complex issues, fail to mention financial conflicts of interest, ignore statistical limitations and transform inherent uncertainties into controversy [3,10].One concerning development within journalism is the ‘balanced treatment'' of controversial science, also called ‘false balance'' by many science communicators. This balanced treatment has helped supporters of pseudoscientific notions gain equal ground with scientific experts in media stories on issues such as climate change and biotechnology [11].“Almost every time the issue of creationism or intelligent design comes up, many newspapers and other media feel that they need to present ‘both sides'', even though one is clearly nonsensical, and indeed harmful to public education,” commented Massimo Pigliucci, author of Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk [12].Fox also criticizes false balance on issues such as global climate change. “On that one you can''t blame the scientific community, you can''t blame science press officers,” she said. “That is a real clashing of values. One of the values that most journalists have bred into them is about balance and impartiality, balancing the views of one person with an opponent when it''s controversial. So on issues like climate change, where there is a big controversy, their instinct as a journalist will be to make sure that if they have a climate scientist on the radio or on TV or quoted in the newspaper, they pick up the phone and make sure that they have a climate skeptic.” However, balanced viewpoints should not threaten years of rigorous scientific research embodied in a peer-reviewed publication. “We are not saying generally that we [scientists] want special treatment from journalists,” Fox said, “but we are saying that this whole principle of balance, which applies quite well in politics, doesn''t cross over to science…”Bertamini believes the situation could be made worse if publication standards are relaxed in favour of promoting a more public and open review process. “If today you were to research the issue of human contribution to global warming you would find a consensus in the scientific literature. Yet you would find no such consensus in the general media. In part this is due to the existence of powerful and well-funded lobbies that fill the media with unfounded skepticism. Now imagine if these lobbies had more access to publish their views in the scientific literature, maybe in the form of post publication feedback. This would be a dangerous consequence of blurring the line that separates scientific writing and the broader media.”In an age in which the way science is presented in the news can have significant impacts for audiences, especially when it comes to health news, what can science communicators and journalists do to keep audiences reading without having to distort, hype, trivialize, dramatize or otherwise misrepresent science?Pigliucci believes that many different sources—press releases, blogs, newspapers and investigative science journalism pieces—can cross-check reported science and challenge its accuracy, if necessary. “There are examples of bloggers pointing out technical problems with published scientific papers,” Pigliucci said. “Unfortunately, as we all know, the game can be played the other way around too, with plenty of bloggers, ‘twitterers'' and others actually obfuscating and muddling things even more.” Pigliucci hopes to see a cultural change take place in science reporting, one that emphasizes “more reflective shouting, less shouting of talking points,” he said.Fox believes that journalists still need to cover scientific developments more responsibly, especially given that scientists are increasingly reaching out to press officers and the public. Journalists can inform, intrigue and entertain whilst maintaining accurate representations of the original science, but need to understand that preliminary results must be replicated and validated before being splashed on the front page. They should also strive to interview experts who do not have financial ties or competing interests in the research, and they should put scientific stories in the context of a broader process of nonlinear discovery. According to Pigliucci, journalists can and should be educating themselves on the research process and the science of logical conclusion-making, giving themselves the tools to provide critical and investigative coverage when needed. At the same time, scientists should undertake proper media training so that they are comfortable communicating their work to journalists or press officers.“I don''t think there is any fundamental flaw in how we communicate science, but there is a systemic flaw in the sense that we simply do not educate people about logical fallacies and cognitive biases,” Pigliucci said, advising that scientists and communicators alike should be intimately familiar with the subjects of philosophy and psychology. “As for bunk science, it has always been with us, and it probably always will be, because human beings are naturally prone to all sorts of biases and fallacious reasoning. As Carl Sagan once put it, science (and reason) is like a candle in the dark. It needs constant protection and a lot of thankless work to keep it alive.”     

What Are the Roles and Responsibilities of the Media in Disseminating Health Information?

BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATE: In December 2004 three news stories in the popular press suggested that the side effects of single-dose nevirapine, which has been proven to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, had been covered up. Many HIV experts believed that the stories were unwarranted and that they would undermine use of the drug, leading to a rise in neonatal HIV infection. The controversy surrounding these stories prompted the PLoS Medicine editors to ask health journalists, and others with an interest in media reporting of health, to share their views on the roles and responsibilities of the media in disseminating health information.     

Characteristics of Medical Research News Reported on Front Pages of Newspapers

Background

The placement of medical research news on a newspaper''s front page is intended to gain the public''s attention, so it is important to understand the source of the news in terms of research maturity and evidence level.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We searched LexisNexis to identify medical research reported on front pages of major newspapers published from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2002. We used MEDLINE and Google Scholar to find journal articles corresponding to the research, and determined their evidence level.Of 734 front-page medical research stories identified, 417 (57%) referred to mature research published in peer-reviewed journals. The remaining 317 stories referred to preliminary findings presented at scientific or press meetings; 144 (45%) of those stories mentioned studies that later matured (i.e. were published in journals within 3 years after news coverage). The evidence-level distribution of the 515 journal articles quoted in news stories reporting on mature research (3% level I, 21% level II, 42% level III, 4% level IV, and 31% level V) differed from that of the 170 reports of preliminary research that later matured (1%, 19%, 35%, 12%, and 33%, respectively; chi-square test, P = .0009). No news stories indicated evidence level. Fewer than 1 in 5 news stories reporting preliminary findings acknowledged the preliminary nature of their content.

Conclusions/Significance

Only 57% of front-page stories reporting on medical research are based on mature research, which tends to have a higher evidence level than research with preliminary findings. Medical research news should be clearly referenced and state the evidence level and limitations to inform the public of the maturity and quality of the source.     

The Unbearable Lightness of Health Science Reporting: A Week Examining Italian Print Media

Background

Although being an important source of science news information to the public, print news media have often been criticized in their credibility. Health-related content of press media articles has been examined by many studies underlining that information about benefits, risks and costs are often incomplete or inadequate and financial conflicts of interest are rarely reported. However, these studies have focused their analysis on very selected science articles. The present research aimed at adopting a wider explorative approach, by analysing all types of health science information appearing on the Italian national press in one-week period. Moreover, we attempted to score the balance of the articles.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We collected 146 health science communication articles defined as articles aiming at improving the reader''s knowledge on health from a scientific perspective. Articles were evaluated by 3 independent physicians with respect to different divulgation parameters: benefits, costs, risks, sources of information, disclosure of financial conflicts of interest and balance. Balance was evaluated with regard to exaggerated or non correct claims. The selected articles appeared on 41 Italian national daily newspapers and 41 weekly magazines, representing 89% of national circulation copies: 97 articles (66%) covered common medical treatments or basic scientific research and 49 (34%) were about new medical treatments, procedures, tests or products. We found that only 6/49 (12%) articles on new treatments, procedures, tests or products mentioned costs or risks to patients. Moreover, benefits were always maximized and in 16/49 cases (33%) they were presented in relative rather than absolute terms. The majority of stories (133/146, 91%) did not report any financial conflict of interest. Among these, 15 were shown to underreport them (15/146, 9.5%), as we demonstrated that conflicts of interest did actually exist. Unbalanced articles were 27/146 (18%). Specifically, the probability of unbalanced reporting was significantly increased in stories about a new treatment, procedure, test or product (22/49, 45%), compared to stories covering common treatments or basic scientific research (5/97, 5%) (risk ratio, 8.72).

Conclusions/Significance

Consistent with prior research on health science communication in other countries, we report undisclosed costs and risks, emphasized benefits, unrevealed financial conflicts of interest and exaggerated claims in Italian print media. In addition, we show that the risk for a story about a new medical approach to be unbalanced is almost 9 times higher with respect to stories about any other kind of health science-related topics. These findings raise again the fundamental issue whether popular media is detrimental rather than useful to public health.     

Press Releases Issued by Supplements Industry Organisations and Non-Industry Organisations in Response to Publication of Clinical Research Findings: A Case-Control Study

Background

Dietary supplement use is increasing despite lack of evidence of benefits, or evidence of harm. Press releases issued by the supplements industry might contribute to this situation by using ‘spin’ (strategies to hype or denigrate findings) to distort the results of clinical studies. We assessed press releases issued in response to publication of clinical studies on dietary supplements.

Methods and Findings

We analyzed 47 supplements industry press releases and 91 non-industry press releases and news stories, generated in response to 46 clinical studies of dietary supplements published between 1/1/2005 and 5/31/2013. The primary outcome was ‘spin’ content and direction. We also assessed disposition towards use of dietary supplements, reporting of study information, and dissemination of industry press releases. More supplements industry press releases (100%) contained ‘spin’ than non-industry media documents (55%, P<0.001). Hyping ‘spin’ scores were higher in industry than non-industry media documents for studies reporting benefit of supplements (median ‘spin’ score 3.3, 95% CI 1.0–5.5 vs 0.5, 0–1.0; P<0.001). Denigratory ‘spin’ scores were higher in industry than non-industry media documents for studies reporting no effect (6.0, 5.0–7.0 vs 0, 0–0; P<0.001) or harm (6.0, 5.5–7.5 vs 0, 0–0.5; P<0.001) from a supplement. Industry press releases advocated supplement use in response to >90% of studies that reported no benefit, or harm, of the supplement. Industry press releases less frequently reported study outcomes, sample size, and estimates of effect size than non-industry media documents (all P<0.001), particularly for studies that reported no benefit of supplements. Industry press releases were referenced by 148 news stories on the websites of 6 organizations that inform manufacturers, retailers and consumers of supplements.

Conclusions

Dietary supplements industry press releases issued in response to clinical research findings are characterized by ‘spin’ that hypes results that are favourable to supplement use and denigrates results that are not.     

Reporting science and conflicts of interest in the lay press

Background

Forthright reporting of financial ties and conflicts of interest of researchers is associated with public trust in and esteem for the scientific enterprise.

Methods/Principal Findings

We searched Lexis/Nexis Academic News for the top news stories in science published in 2004 and 2005. We conducted a content analysis of 1152 newspaper stories. Funders of the research were identified in 38% of stories, financial ties of the researchers were reported in 11% of stories, and 5% reported financial ties of sources quoted. Of 73 stories not reporting on financial ties, 27% had financial ties publicly disclosed in scholarly journals.

Conclusions/Significance

Because science journalists often did not report conflict of interest information, adherence to gold-standard recommendations for science journalism was low. Journalists work under many different constraints, but nonetheless news reports of scientific research were incomplete, potentially eroding public trust in science.     

Media Coverage,Journal Press Releases and Editorials Associated with Randomized and Observational Studies in High-Impact Medical Journals: A Cohort Study

Background

Publication of clinical research findings in prominent journals influences health beliefs and medical practice, in part by engendering news coverage. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) should be most influential in guiding clinical practice. We determined whether study design of clinical research published in high-impact journals influences media coverage.

Methods and Findings

We compared the incidence and amount of media coverage of RCTs with that of observational studies published in the top 7 medical journals between 1 January 2013 and 31 March 2013. We specifically assessed media coverage of the most rigorous RCTs, those with >1000 participants that reported ‘hard’ outcomes. There was no difference between RCTs and observational studies in coverage by major newspapers or news agencies, or in total number of news stories generated (all P>0.63). Large RCTs reporting ‘hard’ outcomes did not generate more news coverage than small RCTs that reported surrogate outcomes and observational studies (all P>0.32). RCTs were more likely than observational studies to attract a journal editorial (70% vs 46%, P = 0.003), but less likely to be the subject of a journal press release (17% vs 50%, P<0.001). Large RCTs that reported ‘hard’ outcomes did not attract an editorial more frequently than other studies (61% vs 58%, P>0.99), nor were they more likely to be the subject of a journal press release (14% vs 38%, P = 0.14).

Conclusions

The design of clinical studies whose results are published in high-impact medical journals is not associated with the likelihood or amount of ensuing news coverage.     

Communicating Synthetic Biology: from the lab via the media to the broader public

We present insights from a study on communicating Synthetic Biology conducted in 2008. Scientists were invited to write press releases on their work; the resulting texts were passed on to four journalists from major Austrian newspapers and magazines. The journalists in turn wrote articles that were used as stimulus material for eight group discussions with select members of the Austrian public. The results show that, from the lab via the media to the general public, communication is characterized by two important tendencies: first, communication becomes increasingly focused on concrete applications of Synthetic Biology; and second, biotechnology represents an important benchmark against which Synthetic Biology is being evaluated.     

Managing the boundaries between maverick cloners and mainstream scientists: the life cycle of a news event in a contested field

Abstract

In January 2004, the ‘maverick cloner’, Dr Panos Zavos called a press conference in London to announce that he had implanted a freshly cloned human embryo in the womb of an infertile woman. Reports of this press conference gained prominent coverage in the national newspapers the following day and led television bulletins that evening. This article discusses the ways in which expertise was claimed by or attributed to Dr Zavos and other key media sources. It argues that three key boundaries were demarcated in the coverage as journalists framed the stories in terms provided by Zavos's antagonists, ‘mainstream scientists’. It also discusses the engagement in tactics of news management by an organised grouping of UK scientists who attempted to shape the terrain of news coverage on the subject of cloning. The question of the extent to which interested scientists should be able to set the terms of media debate is explored.     

Crowdfunding,stem cell interventions and autism spectrum disorder: comparing campaigns related to an international “stem cell clinic” and US academic medical center

Background aimsStudies examining crowdfunding campaigns for stem cell interventions have typically focused on campaigns seeking funds to send individuals to businesses marketing unlicensed and unproven stem cell products. However, some crowdfunding campaigns identify academic medical centers as destinations for individuals seeking access to stem cell products provided either in clinical studies or on an expanded access basis. This study examines crowdfunding campaigns seeking funds to enable children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder access to stem cell interventions.MethodsThis study compares and contrasts crowdfunding campaigns, identifying an international stem cell clinic marketing a purported umbilical cord blood-derived stem cell treatment for autism spectrum disorder, with campaigns soliciting donations intended to help children with autism spectrum disorder either participate in clinical studies or obtain expanded access to stem cell products provided at an academic medical center in the US.ResultsCampaigns connected to both sites contained inaccurate claims. However, campaigns identifying the international clinic as the intended destination site made stronger claims about efficacy and were more reliant upon testimonials than campaigns listing the US-based academic medical center as the planned clinical site. Acknowledging these important distinctions, clinical studies and press releases associated with the academic medical center played an important role in lending the perception of credibility to the putative stem cell treatments marketed by the international clinic.ConclusionsThe study's findings emphasize how important it is for researchers at academic medical centers and comparable research facilities to avoid engaging in stem cell hyperbole; highlight the preliminary nature of early clinical studies; ensure that any claims about safety and efficacy are based upon robust and reliable evidence; and promote responsible science communication by exercising restraint when crafting press releases, conducting media interviews and otherwise publicizing clinical research findings.     

Inappropriate publication of trial results and potential for allegations of illegal share dealing.

There is increasing evidence of fraud in clinical research, and one aspect concerns trading in pharmaceutical company shares by people who may have confidential information about the results of clinical trials. Plainly this has implications for honest investigators, who may find themselves exposed to such allegations. In this paper Dr D S Freestone and Mr H Mitchell, QC, identify three interlinked issues which they think underlie the potential for these allegations. They are pressure for premature or inappropriate communication of research results; trading in pharmaceutical company shares by academic clinical investigators; and the possibility that clinical investigators might succumb to temptation. Dr Freestone and Mr Mitchell suggest that whenever possible results of clinical studies should be published in appropriate medical journals without prior public disclosure. This conflicts with Stock Exchange rules, which require that price sensitive information should be published at the earliest opportunity and preclude priority of publication in medical journals. Freestone and Mitchell believe that rarely rapid public disclosure is acceptable if it is to protect patients'' interests but that it must not prejudice publication in the medical or scientific press. When rapid public disclosure is needed, they say, every attempt should be made to inform prescribers before patients. Dr Freestone and Mr Mitchell warn that academic clinical investigators who have access to unpublished price sensitive information about pharmaceutical companies whose shares they trade in will almost certainly be in breach of the Company Securities (Insider Dealing) Act 1985. Furthermore, disclosing such information to third parties, they say, exposes those people also to potential criminal liability. Freestone and Mitchell advise that when potential for allegations of conflict of interest exists clinical investigators should consider declaring their position to ethics committees and any sponsoring organisations.     

新医改背景下医疗设备信息化管理存在的问题及解决对策探究

医疗设备是医院的重要资产,可在一定程度上反映医院的诊断能力以及现代化程度。新医改政策出台后,各地均大力推进医药卫生信息化建设,随着医疗设备种类的增加,给医院设备管理带来一定的困难,医疗设备信息化管理已成为医院不可或缺的一部分。我国的医疗设备信息化管理起步较晚,尚处于初级研究阶段,从而导致现阶段医疗设备信息化管理问题较多。本文简短叙述了医疗设备信息化管理现状,以及当前医疗设备信息化管理所存在的问题,并对所描述问题提出针对性的解决方案。     

Older Russian emigrés and medical care.

Although emigration from the former Soviet Union is dramatically increasing nationwide, little information has been reported on the medical problems of these emigrés. For older emigrés in particular, the medical realities of aging, in combination with cultural expectations, make the United States'' medical system an arena where the stresses of emigration are expressed and help is sought. We describe the influences of culture and aging on older emigrés'' health and interaction with the American medical system. A qualitative, exploratory study was done of problems and issues in health care use by older Russian emigrés at the ambulatory medical clinic of Mount Zion Medical Center, San Francisco. Cultural expectations and beliefs about health, adaptive health behaviors learned in the former Soviet Union, the stresses of emigration, and the medical realities of aging can result in serious problems in the care and treatment of older Russian emigrés. Recommended solutions include educating emigrés and health care professionals, integrating mental health services into the primary care setting, and expanding supportive services in the community such as adult day health care.     

‘Disease,Disaster and Despair’? The Presentation of Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries on Australian Television

Background

In high-income nations mainstream television news remains an important source of information about both general health issues and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, research on news coverage of health in LMICs is scarce.

Principal Findings

The present paper examines the general features of Australian television coverage of LMIC health issues, testing the hypotheses that this coverage conforms to the general patterns of foreign news reporting in high-income countries and, in particular, that LMIC health coverage will largely reflect Australian interests. We analysed relevant items from May 2005 – December 2009 from the largest health-related television dataset of its kind, classifying each story on the basis of the region(s) it covered, principal content relating to health in LMICs and the presence of an Australian reference point. LMICs that are culturally proximate and politically significant to Australia had higher levels of reportage than more distant and unengaged nations. Items concerning communicable diseases, injury and aspects of child health generally consonant with ‘disease, disaster and despair’ news frames predominated, with relatively little emphasis given to chronic diseases which are increasingly prevalent in many LMICs. Forty-two percent of LMIC stories had explicit Australian content, such as imported medical expertise or health risk to Australians in LMICs.

Significance

Media consumers'' perceptions of disease burdens in LMICs and of these nations'' capacity to identify and manage their own health priorities may be distorted by the major news emphasis on exotic disease, disaster and despair stories. Such perceptions may inhibit the development of appropriate policy emphases in high-income countries. In this context, non-government organisations concerned with international development may find it more difficult to strike a balance between crises and enduring issues in their health programming and fundraising efforts.     

Mediated speculations in the genomics futures markets

This article examines the interactions between the media and genomics, with particular reference to the case of deCODE Genetics in Iceland. It focuses on the role of "forward-looking statements" and other forms of speculation as they operate in the science of genomics, in the social relations that happen around genomics, and in the commercial genomics economy. The article discusses how these fundamentally anticipatory speech acts uttered or written by genomic corporate executives, journalists, or social scientists are simultaneously volatile, exceeding any formal practices of accounting or analysis, and demanding to be accounted for, analysed, or valued. The article discusses four speculative events or cases in the genomics economy: the March 2000 bursting out of the genomics bubble, prompted in part by remarks by President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair to the media concerning gene patenting; the new disclosure requirements of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding "forward-looking statements" as they appear in genomics press releases; deCODE Genetics' registration statement with the SEC that discloses a settlement of a dispute over the ownership of a fragment of DNA; and the entanglement between the author's ethnographic fieldwork and the breaking news story of reported payoffs from deCODE to the Icelandic political parties.     

When Medical News Comes from Press Releases—A Case Study of Pancreatic Cancer and Processed Meat

The media have a key role in communicating advances in medicine to the general public, yet the accuracy of medical journalism is an under-researched area. This project adapted an established monitoring instrument to analyse all identified news reports (n = 312) on a single medical research paper: a meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Cancer which showed a modest link between processed meat consumption and pancreatic cancer. Our most significant finding was that three sources (the journal press release, a story on the BBC News website and a story appearing on the ‘NHS Choices’ website) appeared to account for the content of over 85% of the news stories which covered the meta analysis, with many of them being verbatim or moderately edited copies and most not citing their source. The quality of these 3 primary sources varied from excellent (NHS Choices, 10 of 11 criteria addressed) to weak (journal press release, 5 of 11 criteria addressed), and this variance was reflected in the accuracy of stories derived from them. Some of the methods used in the original meta-analysis, and a proposed mechanistic explanation for the findings, were challenged in a subsequent commentary also published in the British Journal of Cancer, but this discourse was poorly reflected in the media coverage of the story.     

El duro peregrinaje de las revistas biomédicas españolas hacia la excelencia: ¿quién nos ayuda? Calidad,impacto y méritos de la investigación

Biomedical journals must adhere to strict standards of editorial quality. In a globalized academic scenario, biomedical journals must compete firstly to publish the most relevant original research and secondly to obtain the broadest possible visibility and the widest dissemination of their scientific contents. The cornerstone of the scientific process is still the peer-review system but additional quality criteria should be met. Recently access to medical information has been revolutionized by electronic editions.Bibliometric databases such as MEDLINE, the ISI Web of Science and Scopus offer comprehensive online information on medical literature. Classically, the prestige of biomedical journals has been measured by their impact factor but, recently, other indicators such as SCImago SJR or the Eigenfactor are emerging as alternative indices of a journal's quality. Assessing the scholarly impact of research and the merits of individual scientists remains a major challenge. Allocation of authorship credit also remains controversial.Furthermore, in our Kafkaesque world, we prefer to count rather than read the articles we judge. Quantitative publication metrics (research output) and citations analyses (scientific influence) are key determinants of the scientific success of individual investigators. However, academia is embracing new objective indicators (such as the “h” index) to evaluate scholarly merit. The present review discusses some editorial issues affecting biomedical journals, currently available bibliometric databases, bibliometric indices of journal quality and, finally, indicators of research performance and scientific success.     

“True clinical fictions”: Medical and literary narratives from the Civil War hospital

Where to find stories of the “real” Civil War? Since Walt Whitman, observers have suggested the place to look is the military hospital. This paper offers a comparative analysis of medical case histories and literary stories written by S. Weir Mitchell, head contract-surgeon at one of the largest Union army research hospitals. I illustrate that Mitchell's case histories and stories were at once complementary and antagonistic in their use of medical knowledge and narrative technique as a means of achieving truth-value.