HealthNewsReview.org | Independent Expert Reviews of News Stories | Holding Health and Medical Journalism Accountable |
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Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making
The Foundation's mission is to ensure that people understand their choices and have the information they need to make sound decisions affecting their health and well being. A non-profit organization, its objectives are to:
- Promote understanding and adoption of informed medical decision-making.
- Organize and frame medical evidence in an unbiased manner to help people evaluate their options, particularly in cases where differences in individual preferences and perspectives are likely to affect personal choice.
- Sponsor research to expand knowledge of how to improve decision quality in health care.
In a complex medical environment, where cost savings, commercial interests or professional beliefs and commitments are likely to drive medical decisions, the Foundation provides information that is as objective, complete and unbiased as possible.
Media Doctor Australia
Started in 2004, the Media Doctor project in Australia is devoted to improving the standards of medical journalism in the mainstream Australian media. Shortly after being launched in 2004, the Media Doctor Australia website was named "Website of the Week" by the British Medical Journal, and in 2005 the site (along with Professor David Henry and Amanda Wilson) was awarded the prestigious Eureka Prize for Critical Thinking.
Media Doctor Canada
Media Doctor Canada was started in 2005. Project leader Alan Cassels led the first ever evaluation of Canadian newspaper coverage of new drugs (published in April 2003 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal) and has lectured at Canadian journalism schools on issues surrounding pharmaceutical reporting in Canada. He is co-author with Ray Moynihan of Selling Sickness: How The World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients (Greystone books, 2005).
Further Reading
Association of Health Care Journalists
Statement of Principles for Association of Health Care Journalists
UK NHS Choices: Behind The Headlines
Disease Mongering
Tipsheet for reporting on drugs, devices and medical technologies
Cochrane Library
Therapeutics Initiative/Therapeutics Letter
Healthy Skepticism
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.