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Newspapers Biased on Mammography
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Women who
look to newspapers for information about breast cancer may be
getting a distorted picture about the value of routine mammograms
for those in their 40s, a study released on Monday found.
Researchers scrutinized the accuracy of 225 articles about mammography
that appeared between January 1990 and July 1997 in six US dailies--USA
Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post,
Chicago Tribune and Houston Chronicle.
What they found was that newspaper coverage was twice as likely
to cite recommendations advocating regular screening for women
ages 40 to 49, a group for whom the effectiveness of mammography
for breast cancer is still being debated.
Thirty-one percent of the articles, including editorials, failed
to cite sources for information, and the benefits of the X-ray
screening procedure were often illustrated by percentage figures
that appeared without the underlying statistics.
The findings appear in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
``The lesson here is: don't get your news about science from
the newspaper. I hate to say it because that's where I get mine,''
said Kay Dickersin, a study co-author and associate professor
at the Brown University Department of Public Health in Providence,
Rhode Island.
Her biggest fear is that newspaper coverage skewed in favor of
regular screening for women younger than 50 may lead younger women
to undergo unnecessary exposure to radiation and face the unhappy
consequences of ``false-positive'' results that indicate the presence
of cancer when none actually exists.
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer among
women, and doctors say it can be treated most effectively if caught
early through screening.
But the issue of breast cancer and mammograms has been a contentious
one.
For example, clinical trials have shown a 25% to 30% drop in
breast cancer mortality among women who have mammograms in their
50s and 60s. That is, until Danish researchers published a study
in October suggesting that data could be flawed.
Dr. Robert Smith, director of cancer screening for the American
Cancer Society, denied a claim by the latest study's authors that
there is no conclusive scientific evidence on the effectiveness
of mammograms for women under 50.
``Yes, there is,'' said Smith, who staunchly favors mammograms
for younger women. He disagreed, too, with the study's assertion
that his position enjoys a favorable bias among US newspapers.
``It'd be natural to presume that the media is tilted one way
or the other. But I look at the paper and I don't see any of that,''
he said.
The study said the shortcomings unearthed by research were attributable
mainly to the nature of newspapers and the media.
``Journalists are expected to produce controversial or exciting
reports in a short time,'' the authors write.
``Under these circumstances it may be difficult to do justice
to the complexities of scientific evidence, particularly for journalists
without a scientific or medical background.''
A health writer at one newspaper cited by the study agreed, but
declined to go on the record.
``I think they're right. There has been a bias toward screening.
Journalists who write about health feel that when it's a difficult
topic, you want to be more conservative than not,'' he said.
``But this doesn't come out of the air. We interview people,
and the fact is that a lot of the medical profession...believe
that mammograms under 50 is a good idea.''
Reference
Source 89
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