HealthNewsReview.org | Independent Expert Reviews of News Stories | Holding Health and Medical Journalism Accountable |
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Most websites, blogs and publications - including HealthNewsReview.org - now offer feeds that automatically alert you to new content. These feeds (known as RSS feeds) allow you to see what's new on a site without having to visit it first.
Here's how to get started.
Set up a personalized page
First, you'll need to create a personalized page. These pages are like "dashboards" that contain any number of feed modules. These modules display headlines showing a site's most recent content.
To set up a page, create a free account with one of the following services:
There are others, but these are easy for people who haven.t used feeds before. Sign-up should take less than five minutes.
After creating your account, you'll have a personalized page ready for content.
Here's how to add content, including the HealthNewsReview.org feed, to your page.
- Once your page is set up, come back to the HealthNewsReview.org home page and right-click on the orange icon that looks like
this or just click it here. From the little menu that drops down, choose "Copy Link Location." - Now go back to your personalized page and click on "add content," "add stuff," "personalize my page" or similar prompt.
- Paste the link location where shown, and save.
- That's it! You should now see a module with HealthNewsReview.org headlines on your page.
- Repeat the process for other websites whose content you want to receive on your personalized page
Note: Some services make it easier or harder to add content. If you are having difficulty, cut and paste the following link location into the prompt on your personalized page: http://www.healthnewsreview.org/reviews.xml.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is considered the gold standard of preventive health recommendations - including on screening tests. It's a good source for journalists and consumers.
About 70% of the stories reviewed from 2006-9 failed to adequately discuss costs, or to explain how big (or small) are the potential benefits and harms of treatments, tests, products and procedures.
We have documented a disturbing trend of news stories taking an advocacy stance, promoting certain screening tests outside the boundaries of scientific evidence.
Stories on new technologies like Cyberknife, DaVinci robotic surgery systems, and proton beam cancer therapy often fail to scrutinize the evidence and/or to discuss the costs involved.
Rather than suggesting that everyone should be screened for everything, news stories could explain: "All screening tests cause harm; some may do good."
The first 38 network TV network morning health news stories reviewed in 2009 earned an average score of 1.2 stars. 13 of the 38 stories got ZERO stars.
Both TIME magazine and BusinessWeek have published terrific stories explaining the importance of the Number Needed to Treat - or NNT.
Knowing relative risk reduction is like knowing you have a 50% off coupon but not knowing whether it's for a Lexus or a lollipop. Absolute risk reduction tells you what the "coupon" is worth. Read more.
The website NoFreeLunch.org posts "a database of health care professionals who have pledged to accept no gifts from industry and to rely on non-promotional sources of information."
To help journalists cover stories responsibly, we post a list of independent experts who state that they do not have financial ties to drug or medical device manufacturers.
We apply the same ten standardized criteria to the review of every story.
We have about 30 story reviewers. Each story is reviewed by 3 different people.
Gary Schwitzer's seven words you shouldn't use in medical news: cure, miracle, breakthrough, promising, dramatic, hope, victim. Read why.
Our reviewers include two former CNN medical reporters and a former editor of the Washington Post health section.