Claims of no harm: a call for improvement of medical reporting in medical journals

Phil Alderson is rightly critical that researchers should improve precission and language in interpretation of non-significant results.(1) This issue, however, is not a new one. I was therefore surprised that this demand does not go for medical reporters as well. In fact, even a cursory review of recent BMJ medical reports reveals that inappropriate claims of no effect occur frequently.
A typical example is given by the Scott Gotlieb?s report of results of a recent study published in Pediatrics.(2) It is stated, both in heading and in the body of this report, that there is “no connection”, “no relation”, “no link” between MMR vaccine and autism. Morover, the reporter failed to note study limitations and potential conflicts of interests. So the readers might be left with erroneous impression that the controversy relating to the risk of MMR vaccine is definitely resolved.
A number of papers published recently criticized press coverage for exaggerating the benefits and minimizing the harms.(3-5) As pointed out by freelance journalist Ray Moynihan “A growing body of evidence suggests that too often medical reporting looks more like promotion than journalism.”(5) It is therefore hard to believe that editors of BMJ, which is a leader in promotion of evidence based medicine, can tolerate such a poor quality of medical reporting.
In closing, I would argue that it is time that a similar standards of publishing scientific informations in medical journals will be applied to both researchers and medical reporters.
1. Alderson P. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. BMJ 2004;328:476-7.
2. Gottlieb S. Study finds no connection between MMR vaccine and autism. BMJ 2004;328:421.
3. Cassels A, Hughes MA, Cole C, Mintzes B, Lexchin J, McCormack JP. Drugs in the news: an analysis of Canadian newspaper coverage of new prescription drugs. CMAJ 2003;168:1133-7.
4. Schwartz LM, Woloshin S. The media matter: a call for straightforward medical reporting. Ann Intern Med 2004;140:226-8.
5. Moynihan R. Making medical journalism healthier. Lancet 2003;361:2097-8.