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Perhaps Breakthrough Is Too Strong A Word

Some months I can’t wait for my new issue of Prevention magazine to arrive, just so I can see how they’ve stretched the envelope this time.

How about this month’s cover, trumpeting a Cancer Vaccine Breakthrough in big yellow font at lower left of the cover?

So I started flipping through the Table of Contents for the big story.  Hmmm….nothing there.  Odd.

So I started flipping through the pages of tips for “jiggle-proof arms and abs” and such and….voila…on page 13 I found the big story under another “Cancer Breakthrough” heading.

In 16 words in that little box, I learned that a vaccine was Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health News Review*

The Importance Of Promoting Good Science And Medicine In Journalism

Sheril Kirshenbaum, research associate at the University of Texas Austin’s Center for International Energy & Environmental Policy, blogged this week under the headline, “Battle Hymn of the Science Journalist.” Excerpt:

There are many excellent science journalists who inhabit the blogosphere and those mainstream news outlets that still feature science sections. These talented individuals want to share your story, your research, and they appreciate and value what you do.

However, there are also a lot of horrible journalists making the rest of us look bad.. Writers who care less about getting it right, and more about trumping up controversy. Journalists whose headlines are notoriously misleading or false. Some Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

The Misuse Of A National Television Platform To Promote Health Information

In a highly-promoted appearance, legendary Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden went on ABC’s Good Morning America yesterday to announce that he had kept silent since 2007 about his diagnosis with prostate cancer.

First, let me say that I’ve always liked this guy. Funny. Charming. Coached teams that were fun to watch.

But that doesn’t make you an effective communicator on prostate cancer.

If you listen very carefully to the following clip (it took me 3 times watching the clip before I caught this), you’ll hear interviewer Robin Roberts rapidly mention that Bowden “is being compensated” for his appearance by “On the Line.”

On the Line” is sponsored by several entities including two drug companies that make prostate cancer drugs and by Project Zero – whose executive made news on this blog recently by writing that Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society “has killed more men by giving them an excuse to not be tested.”

You could probably find less conflicted sources Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

TIME Magazine Promotes Evidence-Based Medicine In Its Special Nutrition Issue

Here on SBM we have frequently had cause to criticize the media for poor science reporting and for spreading misinformation. Among many other individual offenders, we have criticized Dr. Oz for promoting alternative medicine on his TV show and gullibly promoting guests who pretend to talk to the dead and pretend to heal people with carnival sideshow tricks. We tend to be negative and critical because somebody has to do it, but it’s not pleasant.  For once, I have some good things to say.

The September 12 issue of TIME magazine was a Special Nutrition Issue. The cover featured pictures of food and the title “What to Eat Now: Uncovering the Myths about Food by Dr. Oz.” It devotes 7 pages to an article by him entitled “The Oz Diet: No more myths. No more fads. What you should eat — and why.” This is followed by a 5 page article by John Cloud “Nutrition in a Pill? I took 3000 supplements over five months. Here’s what happened.” Both articles have a rational, science-based perspective without any intrusions of woo-woo.

Oz on What to Eat

Oz acknowledges that the science of nutrition is not simple and that much of what we once believed has been discarded in the face of new knowledge. He debunks a number of popular misconceptions about diet. Most of what he says is consistent with scientific evidence and with mainstream diet advice. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

Print Journals Are Not How We Get Our Information Anymore

This morning in the Chicago Tribune’s business section appeared an article entitled “Just What the Doctor Ordered” that included an interview with Dr. Howard Bauchner, the new editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). He plans to pursue a strategy of “intelligent innovation” for the journal:

…looking for ways to get information to doctors and consumers through several new platforms, such as social media, video and other forms. “If you look at TED or Big Think, they have been experimenting with video clips,” Bauchner said. “I could imagine having some of our authors do video clips where they speak about the meaning of their research for eight or 10 minutes, and then that’s easily linked to a smart phone.”

He also wants shorter on-line version of articles that condense the topic to 500 words from the typical 2,500- to 3,000-word articles not too dissimilar, I suppose, to the abstract.

Which leads to the inevitable end result: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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