According to a new study, health news stories frequently use highly optimistic terms to describe new cancer drugs.
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The use of superlatives to describe cancer drugs in news articles as “breakthrough”, “revolutionary”, “miracle” or in other grandiose terms was common even when drugs were not yet approved, had no clinical data or not yet shown overall survival benefits, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology.
School of Medicine in Cleveland, say news articles can be important sources of information, but using the wrong terms may lead to misunderstandings.
And who used the superlative terms?
Just five days’ worth of news last June contained 94 articles that lavishly praised 36 different cancer drugs, researchers found by combing Google.
“We found that 14 percent of the drugs that we looked at had never been given to a human being”. 55% of the time it was journalists, followed by physicians (27%), industry experts (9%), patients (8%) and one member of Congress. What we found was surprising. The Guardian in the United Kingdom and other outlets have claimed that most turns of phrase are already present in the press releases or university statements that they receive to notify them of new studies and scientific developments. Superlatives were used most often to refer to targeted therapy and an immunologic checkpoint inhibitor. They occurred across many classes of medication, were used for approved and unapproved drugs, and a few of the use was questionable.
In a commentary today on HealthNewsReview.org, the site’s publisher Gary Schwitzer says words matter and good evidence should stand on its own.
“Words matter”, Schwitzer writes.
Cancer patients are most harmed by this hype, said Dr. Lidia Schapira, editor-in-chief of Cancer.net and an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Good evidence doesn’t need sugar-coating with superlatives”.
Prasad, a hematology/oncology specialist, researched the mechanism of action for each of the drugs identified, and coded them by class.
“The easy solution is to report specifics”, he said. “How well did people do taking the medicine? How long did people live?”
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“These words really do have a big influence on how we think about these things”, he said.
