The article above, printed in the “Perspectives” column in a recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, reviews the failings of heath care news and challenges journalists to offer a more complete picture and resist the urge to sensationalize and oversimplify the news. I recommend that every consumer of health care news read the article as it provides an important perspective.
The article will also give readers a better appreciation for the frustration that doctors experience reading health care news in the lay press, realizing the misinformation that readers digest, and knowing the time and energy they then must spend attempting to correct mistaken notions.
The bottom line: read health care news with a good degree of skepticism. (Despite journalism's best intentions, the media industry is ultimately in the business of making money. Health care news, whether fully accurate or not, sells and increased sales bring more money.)
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