Research press releases need better policing
BMJ 2014; 348 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g2868 (Published 28 April 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g2868
- Margaret McCartney, general practitioner, Glasgow
- margaret{at}margaretmccartney.com
Blaming the media for bad reporting is good sport. It’s easy to find headlines in the broadsheets as well as the tabloids breaking health news with overstated research findings. Caveats of scientific conclusions are often abbreviated or absent. Scientific uncertainties can be left diminished or invisible.
The media have been repeatedly blamed for misinformation and health scares, and no wonder: when patients voice or act on misconceptions in the press, trying to redress the balance can eat up scarce clinical time.
I confess a previous secret pleasure in playing the dissing bad headlines game. My own crossness with bad health reporting was the reason I started writing. But the rules were never fair, I now realise.
Doctors and scientists are expected to be trustworthy, and journalists may reasonably assume that press releases present the facts fairly, unambiguously, and without spin. For a few chosen authors, media officers at universities or journals will decide their paper is worthy of a press release. It will be sent out under embargo, before the research is published. The aim is to generate interest in the paper.
A typical press release will contain a summary of the paper, a few statistics aching to be used in a headline, and some quotes from the authors. Some include access to the full paper; but others don’t.
The result can be bad reporting. For example, when the press release’s first line says, “Eating 7 or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day reduces your risk of death at any point in time by 42%”1 and that the effect was “staggering,” no wonder the press bounced “42%” around, and the BBC used the headline, “Seven-a-day fruit and veg ‘saves lives’.”2 3 But this study was capable only of finding association and not causation.4
And then there are postulated add ons. For example, in a study that found higher salivary concentrations of one of two possible markers for stress in women trying to conceive, the author in the press release encouraged “yoga, meditation and mindfulness”5 despite the study considering none of these interventions.6
The CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guidelines have been successful in improving the reporting of randomised controlled trials.7 Yet we know that the public still miss out: half of press releases on randomised controlled trials get spun.8 We urgently need to ensure the public get better information about medical research. We need guidelines for press releases. Research should be placed in context, caveats made crystal, limitations defined, and the meaning of an association spelled out. And relative risks should be banned forthwith.
Notes
Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g2868
Footnotes
Competing interests: I have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: I’m an NHS GP partner, with income partly dependant on Quality and Outcomes Framework points. I’m a part time undergraduate tutor at the University of Glasgow. I’ve authored a book and earned from broadcast and written freelance journalism. I’m an unpaid patron of Healthwatch. I make a monthly donation to Keep Our NHS Public. I’m a member of MedAct. I’m occasionally paid for time, travel, and accommodation to give talks or have locum fees paid to allow me to give talks but never for any drug or public relations company. I was elected to the national council of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 2013.
Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; not externally peer reviewed.
Follow Margaret McCartney on Twitter, @mgtmccartney
Find out more about the doctor behind the column: read Margaret McCartney’s recent BMJ Confidential, “Singing the praises of evidence,” www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g2015.