Coverage by the news media of the benefits and risks of medications.

BACKGROUND The news media are an important source of information about new medical treatments, but there is concern that some coverage may be inaccurate and overly enthusiastic. METHODS We studied coverage by U.S. news media of the benefits and risks of three medications that are used to prevent major diseases. The medications were pravastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug for the prevention of cardiovascular disease; alendronate, a bisphosphonate for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis; and aspirin, which is used for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. We analyzed a systematic probability sample of 180 newspaper articles (60 for each drug) and 27 television reports that appeared between 1994 and 1998. RESULTS Of the 207 stories, 83 (40 percent) did not report benefits quantitatively. Of the 124 that did, 103 (83 percent) reported relative benefits only, 3 (2 percent) absolute benefits only, and 18 (15 percent) both absolute and relative benefits. Of the 207 stories, 98 (47 percent) mentioned potential harm to patients, and only 63 (30 percent) mentioned costs. Of the 170 stories citing an expert or a scientific study, 85 (50 percent) cited at least one expert or study with a financial tie to a manufacturer of the drug that had been disclosed in the scientific literature. These ties were disclosed in only 33 (39 percent) of the 85 stories. CONCLUSIONS News-media stories about medications may include inadequate or incomplete information about the benefits, risks, and costs of the drugs as well as the financial ties between study groups or experts and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

[1]  B. Dan.  TV or not TV. Communicating health information to the public. , 1992, JAMA.

[2]  T. Fahey,et al.  Evidence based purchasing: understanding results of clinical trials and systematic reviews , 1995, BMJ.

[3]  J. Kassirer,et al.  Clinical research--what should the public believe? , 1994, The New England journal of medicine.

[4]  D. Melzer.  New drug treatment for Alzheimer's disease: lessons for healthcare policy , 1998, BMJ.

[5]  S. Zeger,et al.  Longitudinal data analysis using generalized linear models , 1986 .

[6]  F M Haaijer-Ruskamp,et al.  Journalists and their sources of ideas and information on medicines. , 1994, Social science & medicine.

[7]  F M Haaijer-Ruskamp,et al.  Setting the agenda: does the medical literature set the agenda for articles about medicines in the newspapers? , 1995, Social science & medicine.

[8]  P. Rochon,et al.  A study of manufacturer-supported trials of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the treatment of arthritis. , 1994, Archives of internal medicine.

[9]  M Shuchman,et al.  Medical Scientists and Health News Reporting: A Case of Miscommunication , 1997, Annals of Internal Medicine.

[10]  R. Davidson.  Source of funding and outcome of clinical trials , 1986, Journal of general internal medicine.

[11]  Ebra,et al.  ESOPHAGITIS ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF ALENDRONATE , 2000 .

[12]  D. Nelkin,et al.  An uneasy relationship: the tensions between medicine and the media , 1996, The Lancet.

[13]  J. McCormack,et al.  Meaningful Interpretation of Risk Reduction from Clinical Drug Trials , 1993, The Annals of pharmacotherapy.

[14]  S Chapman,et al.  Infinitesimal risk as public health crisis: news media coverage of a doctor-patient HIV contact tracing investigation. , 1996, Social science & medicine.

[15]  L. Bero,et al.  Print media coverage of research on passive smoking , 1999, Tobacco control.

[16]  C D Naylor,et al.  Measured Enthusiasm: Does the Method of Reporting Trial Results Alter Perceptions of Therapeutic Effectiveness? , 1992, Annals of Internal Medicine.

[17]  K. Gyr,et al.  Influence of method of reporting study results on decision of physicians to prescribe drugs to lower cholesterol concentration , 1994, BMJ.

[18]  M. Cho,et al.  The Quality of Drug Studies Published in Symposium Proceedings , 1996, Annals of Internal Medicine.

[19]  A. Donner,et al.  A comparison of confidence interval methods for the intraclass correlation coefficient. , 1986, Biometrics.

[20]  G. W. Snedecor.  Statistical Methods , 1964 .

[21]  S. Soumerai,et al.  Effects of professional and media warnings about the association between aspirin use in children and Reye's syndrome. , 1992, The Milbank quarterly.

[22]  V. Entwistle,et al.  Reporting research in medical journals and newspapers , 1995, BMJ.

[23]  S. Krimsky,et al.  Financial interest and its disclosure in scientific publications. , 1998, JAMA.

[24]  C. Sitthi-amorn,et al.  The Role of Media and Communication in Improving the Use of Drugs and Other Technologies , 1998, International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care.

[25]  Myers Mg.  "Drug may have caused huge number of deaths": lessons learned during an encounter with The Fifth Estate. , 1996 .

[26]  A D Oxman,et al.  An index of scientific quality for health reports in the lay press. , 1993, Journal of clinical epidemiology.

[27]  B. Demichelis,et al.  Completeness of reporting trial results: effect on physicians' willingness to prescribe , 1994, The Lancet.

[28]  C. Ramsay,et al.  Mass media interventions: effects on health services utilisation. , 2002, The Cochrane database of systematic reviews.

[29]  Lisa M. Schwartz,et al.  Misunderstandings about the effects of race and sex on physicians' referrals for cardiac catheterization. , 1999, The New England journal of medicine.

[30]  S. Hill,et al.  Variability in risk of gastrointestinal complications with individual non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs: results of a collaborative meta-analysis , 1996, BMJ.

[31]  W. Evans,et al.  Can media advocacy influence newspaper coverage of tobacco: measuring the effectiveness of the American stop smoking intervention study's (ASSIST) media advocacy strategies , 2001, Tobacco control.

[32]  C D Naylor,et al.  Communicating the Benefits of Chronic Preventive Therapy , 1995, Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making.

[33]  A. Schieppati,et al.  Lessons from the Di Bella affair , 1999, The Lancet.

[34]  G. Guyatt,et al.  A Journalist's Guide to Writing Health Stories , 1999 .