Asked what the major issues in health care reporting are right now, Schwitzer said that, after analyzing 780 stories from the major newspapers and networks that feed Americans their news on health care, he and his colleagues have found that "72% of stories fail to adequately address costs." "71% fail to adequately quantify benefits."
I went to a presentation about how to improve health care news coverage in the U.S., which was mostly about how many health news reports don’t cover basic issues like costs, availability or provide even a hint of context about whether something is truly broadly beneficial.
That’s noted health journalist Christine Gorman at Global Health Report about how coverage of health care in the U.S. (and internationally as well, especially when it comes to public health issues) lacks objectivity and is often driven by those with a vested interest in radically simplifying the facts.
AJN, it happens, will be meeting later this morning with one of the speakers at the Association of Health Care Journalists presentation that Gorman had just attended when she wrote her post: Gary Schwitzer, “fomer CNN reporter and current journalism professor who founded HealthNewsReview.org.”
Schwitzer is on a mission to improve health care reporting. His Web site takes major health care stories about medications, treatments, and other issues and subjects them to rigorous criteria regarding whether they provide readers crucial context, accuracy, and balance.
Nurses and patients need to know that the news about new drugs and treatments isn’t always as accurate as it could be. Critical thinking is needed, and Schwitzer is helping provide us with the tools.
Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor
Here are more images from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
By wonker, via Flickr.
According to a story in The Australian, the drug company Merck has been accused of paying nurses to sift through patient medical records in search of potential candidates for the drug Vioxx. Here’s what nurse ethicist Douglas Olsen, who recently wrote a two-part article (here’s part one; part two is here) for AJN on nurses and the pharmaceutical industry, wrote to us about the story:
The news report demonstrates the public’s visceral sense that the Merck program in Australia was unethical. Nurses, as well as doctors and pharmacists, can anticipate righteous indignation whenever their clinical deliberations appear compromised by a company’s desire to sell a particular drug. […]
I will probably be stoned by some of my colleagues for not boycotting a program that revolves around a nurse who has an addiction. But as far as I can tell, Nurse Jackie is tough, funny, and, above all, a smart nurse who is a fierce advocate for her patients.
