The media-medicine mix: quality concerns in medical reporting

Competing interests: Alan Cassels is the founder and project leader of Media Doctor Canada, which is funded through the Office of Consumer Affairs at Industry Canada. He is remunerated for coordinating reviewers and administering the project. M ANY PEOPLE HEAR ABOUT MEDICAL discoveries for the first time through popular media. Newspapers, magazines, television and the Internet play an increasingly crucial role in communicating information about health issues and informing the public about research findings and new treatments. Good medical journalism provides accurate, balanced reports and important contextual information, helps to set appropriate expectations on the part of consumers, informs the larger medical community, and thus arguably provides a vital public service. By the same token, poor medical journalism can exaggerate or oversimplify an issue, unnecessarily inflating expectations of patients and providers and putting increasing strain on the physician–patient relationship. The importance of the role played by health journalism is reflected in the findings of a 1999 survey of Canadian general practitioners; of the 250 physicians surveyed, 75% thought that health-related news reporting is beneficial because it prompts patients to ask important questions and otherwise learn more about their health. 3 However, almost two thirds of survey respondents stated that journalists should do better job of reporting on health issues. This concern with the quality of medical reporting stemmed from many documented problems, such as stories that lacked complete information, especially concerning the quality of evidence, and that selectively reported benefits, harms and costs of treatment. Other problems are evident; for example, studies in several countries have found that media stories often do not mention the financial ties between study groups or experts and the manufacturers of the treatment in question, although this information provides vital context to a new study. Such concerns have led to recent calls for more direct and honest reporting of trial results. 6 Quality and comprehensiveness of health technology coverage by the lay media are important for individual patients and society as a whole. 7 Preliminary reports can set the tone for subsequent news stories; because media coverage influences perceptions of both consumers and health care professionals, it can affect demand (positively or negatively) for particular health treatments, which in turn can have an impact on public decision-making, shaping public debate around access to new therapies through drug licensing, subsidized payments and other means. For example, in 2005 new studies of trastuzumab (Herceptin) announced a breakthrough …