August 13th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Following Gary Schwitzer’s HealthNewsReview.org August 11th blog post below entitled “American Cancer Society: ‘Only’ A Fundraising Ad, Right?”, the American Cancer Society pulled its “Screening Is Seeing” ad the next day.
See Schwitzer’s follow-up post “Screening Is Seeing” Ad By American Cancer Society-Cancer Action Network (ACS-CAN) Is Pulled” and a related article by Mary Carmichael of Newsweek: “The American Cancer Society’s Misleading New Ads.”
Also see “Common Themes In The Alzheimer’s Test Stories And The Cancer Society Screening Ad” by Schwitzer.
(ORIGINAL POST)
American Cancer Society: “Only” A Fundraising Ad, Right?
A well-intentioned ad campaign run by the American Cancer Society is too vague, and therefore may leave impressions that are imbalanced, incomplete and unsubstantiated — the kind of common tactic seen in many drug company ads. That’s my opinion based on my analysis of the ad and based on my reading of the text.
An American Cancer Society news release states:
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) is launching a new print and online advertising campaign in congressional districts across the country this week, urging lawmakers to fully fund a lifesaving cancer prevention, early detection and diagnostic program that is celebrating 20 years of screening low income, uninsured, and medically underserved women for breast and cervical cancer. The ads also send the message that when it comes to increasing your odds of surviving cancer, access to evidence-based early detection tools is critical.
The ads reference the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP), which has a track record of reducing deaths from breast and cervical cancer. The program has provided more than 9 million screening exams to more than 3 million women and diagnosed more than 40,000 cases of breast cancer and more than 2,000 cases of cervical cancer since it launched in 1990. But with limited funding, the program is able to serve fewer than 1 in 5 eligible women.
The accomplishments of the CDC NBCCEDP are noteworthy. So this blog entry is no knock on that program. It’s a criticism of the ad. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
August 8th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Medblogger Shout Outs, News, Opinion, Research
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Ivan Oransky, M.D., executive editor of Reuters Health, somehow found time a few months ago to launch his first blog, Embargo Watch — with the tagline: “Keeping an eye on how scientific information embargoes affect news coverage.”
Now, as evidence he either doesn’t sleep or has roots in Transylvania, Oransky the Impaler launches a new blog, Retraction Watch along with partner Adam Marcus. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
August 4th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
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In an unusual move, a journal has actually gone in and changed a previously-stated conclusion of a previously-published paper. This follows a Reuters Health story that raised questions about the study. Reuters reports:
“A journal editor has scrubbed a line supporting the use of a L’Oreal-Nestle tanning pill from the conclusion of a company-sponsored study.
The edits come days after a Reuters Health story about serious shortcomings in the report.
Dr. Tanya Bleiker, editor of the British Journal of Dermatology, which published the study, told Reuters Health this week by e-mail she had changed the conclusion of the report, with the permission of the authors, and added the researchers’ financial conflicts.
Half of them were employees of Laboratoires Inneov, a joint venture between L’Oreal and Nestle that makes the tanning pill, called Inneov Sun Sensitivity. However, the original version of the study did not include a conflict of interest statement, Bleiker said last week, because “the authors stated very clearly that there was no conflict of interest.”
…
On the first page of the report, the researchers concluded that their “results support the use of this nutritional supplement.”
That sentence has now been removed. But the new version of the report now available online still says the tanning pill increases the threshold for sunburns and “represents a complementary strategy to sun avoidance and sunscreen use for a global approach to photoprotection.”
An independent dermatologist who reviewed the results for Reuters Health disputed those claims last week.
Referring to whether the pill would protect women against the sun’s harmful UV rays, Dr. Peter Schalock, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said he had “hard time seeing that statistically or scientifically (the researchers) have proven it.”
Journalists and the general public can learn from this example. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
July 31st, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Research
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My friend and colleague Bill Heisel, one of our news reviewers, also works at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. He wrote to me that this group:
“… has launched a major global health survey to measure the impact of more than 300 diseases or injuries and more than 40 risk factors. This is the most ambitious global health measurement project in two decades. And when people answer the survey, they will be providing information that will directly shape the final outcome of the research because ‘disease burden’ is partly objective but partly subjective.”
And his pitch to anyone to take the 15-minute, anonymous, online survey is this:
“With unprecedented money and attention pouring into global health efforts, the need for accurate data is urgent. By taking part in the survey, you will contribute to the scientific understanding of global health problems and ultimately enable policymakers to make better decisions.”
Click HERE to begin the survey. Thanks for the news, Bill. And thanks to anyone who takes the time to complete the survey. You may help this team reach its goal of 50,000 people around the globe filling out the survey.
The research is part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010 led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, in collaboration with Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Queensland, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
And you can follow the project on Twitter.
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
July 27th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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Kudos to Christopher Snowbeck and the St. Paul Pioneer Press for digging into new Medicare data to report that the state the newspaper serves is out of whack with the rest of the country in how many expensive MRI scans are done on Minnesotans’ bad backs.
Snowbeck artfully captures the predictable rationalization and defensive responses coming from locals who don’t like what the data suggest. Because what they suggest is overuse leading to overtreatment. So here’s one attempt a provider makes to deflect the data:
“The Medicare billing/claims data, which this report is generated from, would not capture conversations between a patient and provider that may have addressed alternative therapies for lower back pain,” said Robert Prevost, a spokesman for North Memorial Health Care. “It’s important to recognize the limitations of this data.”
No, data don’t capture conversations. But wouldn’t it be fascinating to be a fly on the wall during those many patient-physician encounters that led to an MRI to see what level of truly informed shared decision-making (if any) took place? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
