Health News Med: April 7 digest from HealthNewsReview.org

Trying to improve the public dialogue about health care

"Nuanced balance is not easily communicated."

That one line from an editorial spoke volumes about the latest mammography study, "A Systematic Assessment of Benefits and Risks to Guide Breast Cancer Screening Decisions." While most news organizations captured the conclusion that harms may outweigh the benefits, some still emphasized benefits in a way that left me puzzled. Meantime, we gave a glimpse of the extent to which mammography's promoters are trying to win the hearts and minds of women - and of journalists.

Dr. Daniel Kopans making a point to a journalist at recent Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Denver. The Society of Breast Imaging paid to have an exhibit there.
Meantime, across the Atlantic, Dr. Margaret McCartney wrote in the BMJ about how The Sun newspaper's "Check 'em Tuesday" breast check campaign may actually harm women. The Sun, which regularly puts topless women on its Page 3, seems more interested in titillating than educating.

There was a lot of news coverage of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing a surprising number of US medical school leaders serving on drug company boards of directors, raising questions about their independence. Average annual compensation from the drug company service was $313,000. Nice pocket change.



If you think we have a problem with pharma's relationship with doctors in the U.S, some Canadians think they have a bigger problem. Read the piece by Joel Lexchin and Andrew Boozary in The Globe and Mail. They have founded Open Pharma as a movement to empower patients and physicians through greater transparency with the drug industry.



Psychologist Steve Herman blogged, "Misinformation about the findings of 'Paternal Age at Childbearing and Offspring Psychiatric and Academic Morbidity,' a study by D'Onofrio et al. (2014)." An "older father," Herman says he was "shocked and worried" when he saw one of the hundreds of media reports about the study.



I posted my slides from my 8th annual talk to the Association of Health Care Journalists. Smart crowd. Eager listeners and learners.

Recognition of one's work is always an honor. And so I'm pleased to learn that:

the American Medical Writers Association will present me with one of its two highest awards at their annual meeting in October - the McGovern Award for preeminent contributions to medical communication. Past recipients include George Lundberg, John K. Iglehart, Anthony Fauci, Art Caplan, Sherwin Nuland, Jerome Groopman and others. The other AMWA top award goes to Rosemary Gibson, for whom I have great respect.

and the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation included me among 25 Champions of Shared Decision Making. They stated, "Gary has greatly helped improve standards for reporting health news and decrease the extent to which medical interventions are inaccurately portrayed and oversold. He also helped develop early decision aids at the Foundation." It's an honor to be named alongside the other 24 people cited by the Foundation, including Jack Wennberg, Al Mulley, Michael Barry, Jack Fowler and others.

Finally, I'm honored to be invited to give a keynote address at Australia's National Medicines Symposium next month. It'll be my first trip to the land of Oz, and I'm anticipating a great visit.

As a result of my preparation for that trip, and then my travels, these digest emails - and the website itself - will go quiet for some time.