Category: Your Health Matters

(0 stars)
The story overstated the risk of esophageal cancer and the value of a new approach for direct visualization and biopsy of the esophagus and was a free ad for a local hospital and a manufacturer. Wow.

(4 stars)
One big problem: “lots of red meat increases mortality risk" – suggests that cause-and-effect has been established when this kind of observational study simply CAN NOT establish causation and risk.

(3 stars)
Interesting, important story on local officials debating the evidence on treating cardiac arrest.  Unfortunately, the story didn’t discuss the actual evidence!  So it fell far short of its potential.

(4 stars)

(5 stars)
Story did a good job reporting in a single news story results of two big, important prostate cancer screening studies that must be considered together yet for many reasons shouldn’t be compared.

(4 stars)
The story lets the "good news" linger far too long before getting to the "bad news" – the studies are unpublished, preliminary, small, brief and inconclusive. Hopes raised & dashed within 350 words.

(3 stars)
This story explained that not all prostate cancers will create problems. But the story simply followed the journal article of the day and didn’t report on the costs of overtesting and overtreatment.

(3 stars)
Nice tale of a girl who is helped by growth hormone therapy but didn’t quantify the treatment benefits, mention the significant treatment costs or describe potential harms, of which there are many.

(4 stars)
Solid, concise reporting.  Room for improvement:  reporting on costs – a significant issue in this case – and explaining the inherent limitations of drawing conclusions from this type of study.

(4 stars)
Strong points: puts findings in context of other research, describes methodology and conclusions clearly, includes viewpoints and caveats from four sources – all in less than 500 words.

(2 stars)
Cheerleading hometown story, perhaps meant to pave the way for two very expensive proton therapy centers in Central Ohio.  No hard questions about whether two are needed, or about the therapy itself.

(0 stars)
Felt like an ad for a device and the one medical center testing it. The number of primary brain tumors is exaggerated, the efficacy of the approach overstated, the potential for harm ignored.