Medical data, the media, and distortion of the facts in the internet era.

a of s age, w edia o sed d s t e lead s efib tients t promi uters s s: 1 i sary S the c rs i now h ients w lost t that d rticle w d in r of “ adly” c defi to p illat u t u fi ( s Important advances in clinical medicine, published ajor peer-reviewed medical journals, are frequently d eminated to the general public by major media outlets. ervice is a benefit to the public in that crucial scientifi re made available to many patients and interested pa ho might otherwise not have ready access to such i ation. Indeed, the Internet has permitted medical and ntific findings from large multicenter therapeutic trials e instantaneously accessible on-line to millions of rea hroughout the world. But do we really understand apidly evolving process whereby medical facts are tr ated by the media, and how often (and why) nua cientific data are conveyed incorrectly or imprecise robably not as much as we might think. The mechanisms by which published information is ared for press release are diverse and vary considerab erms of expertise, accuracy, and oversight. For exam igh-visibility journals targeting general medical audienc uch as JAMA, selectively create their own press releas hich highlight and strictly adhere to the findings, con ions, and implications of selected reports at the tim ublication. Some major newspapers, such as the N w York imes, may assign their own staff reporters to form rticles summarizing medical findings they believe to b articular interest, as do dedicated cardiovascular Web s uch as http://www.theheart.org or the American College ardiology (http://www.acc.org). In addition, new medic nformation is widely disseminated by the global news anizations (e.g., the Associated Press, United Press In ational, and Reuters, also referred to as wire services), heir own journalists independently targeting scientific orts judged to be of general interest for daily newspa adio, television, and the Internet. The purpose of the present editorial is to report a ituation in which a medical scientific report publishe AMA, “Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillators and Pr ention of Sudden Cardiac Death in Hypertrophic Car yopathy,”1 of which I was an author, was subjecte ignificant misrepresentation by a distorted news organi ion article written and approved by the staff of Reuters 2 he ldest (156 years) and largest of the international n gencies. In researching and dissecting that situation, I ducated as to what can potentially happen to peer-revie ata once subjected to interpretation by the media. T ay well be considerable value in sharing this experi nd my insights with the readership at this time. Our report in JAMA1 carried a concise but importa