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Archives | (December 2001)
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Media Malpractice (cont.)
------------------------------------------------------------------ Page 2 of 4 One of the most blatant recent examples of this phenomenon was the widespread news coverage given to a Vanderbilt University study of the herbal remedy St. John's Wort. Headlines trumpeted the study's conclusion that the herb was ineffective in treating severe depression. Although the news stories did accurately report the Vanderbilt scientist's conclusions, it failed to mention two vitally important facts. First, St. John's Wort has never been recommended as a treatment for severe depression. Rather, it is indicated as a treatment for mild to moderate depression, an entirely different problem. It is no surprise therefore, that it would be ineffective in treating the more severe form of the problem. Yet the news reports made no mention of this critical fact. Secondly, the study was funded in part by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which manufacturers the anti-depression medication Zoloft. Treatment with Zoloft costs anywhere from ten to twenty times as much as St. John's Wort. As a result, as St. John's Wort has grown in popularity, sales of Zoloft and similar products have suffered. This fact clearly gave Pfizer a motive to in essence stack the deck in designing a study that would be assured of having a negative outcome. Again, however, the media failed to report this critical consideration. When it comes to "Big Medicine" however, the media take a much different approach. Take Time Magazine for example. On May 28,2001, the cover of Time carried a banner headline" "THERE IS NEW AMMUNITION IN THE WAR AGAINST CANCER." A subtitle under the banner read: " Revolutionary new pills like GLEEVEC combat cancer by targeting only disease cells. Is this the breakthrough we've been waiting for?" Inside the magazine, an article describing GLEEVEC was somewhat more restrained, but still left the impression of a "miracle cure." As with the reports on herbal remedies, important facts went unmentioned, but unlike herbal remedies, where the information omitted was favorable to the dietary supplements, these facts were unfavorable. Among the omissions was the limited scope of GLEEVEC's potential use. Only 4,400 of the over 1,500,000 cases of cancer diagnosed annually could be treated with GLEEVEC. Another factor was the cost -- an estimated $20,000 per year -- that patients would have to bear for the rest of their lives. Most important however, was the fact that the FDA had "fast-tracked" the drug after it was tested on just 54 patients -- far too few to have a definitive assessment of its efficacy. Yet, Time threw caution to the wind and in essence declared victory in the War on Cancer. As it turned out, the declaration was premature. Less than a month after Time's dramatic cover story, a paper was published in Science Magazine describing how GLEEVEC loses its effectiveness in many patients -- particularly those with more advanced cancer -- after a few months. This news, however, was not met with the same fanfare that accompanied the announcement of GLEEVEC's only weeks before. There was no banner headline. There were no special graphics. Indeed, even in reporting the bad news, the stories that did discuss what had been discovered carried a positive "spin." They called the findings "valuable" in sharp contrast with the way similar information on dietary supplements would be cast. |
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