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Catherine Howe was driving home three years ago when a ball of white light exploded in her field of vision.
Alone and almost completely blind, she made her way back to her Richmond apartment, inching her car slowly along the city streets.
"It was like I'd been hit by a train, head-on . . . the light was so bright," said Howe, 76. "I woke up the next morning with a big black blob in front of my left eye."
Today, thanks to a revolutionary new drug injected into her eye, Howe has nearly perfect vision.

The original article can found in the Media Doctor archives.

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This is a disappointing story that reads like an advertisement for Macugen, a newly approved treatment for age-related macular degeneration. While the story is clean on some important details, such as the availability, and cost of the new treatment, it fails to give any detail on the evidence upon which the drug's approval would have been based. There is therefore no sense from this article as to the magnitude of benefits of the treatment, how it may compare to alternatives, or what may be the key side effects or possible harms associated with a treatment that needs to be injected directly into your eye. . A quick Google search revealed that Macugen (the story does not provide the generic name for the treatment which is pegaptanib sodium injection) is associated with retinal detachment and 'iatrogenic traumatic cataracts' neither of which, even if rare, sound like much fun. There is an obvious connection between this story and the press release issued by the manufacturer two days before the story appeared, so in terms of reliance on the press release or securing any outside corroborating opinion as to the benefits of this treatment, the story scores Not Satisfactory on both counts. Even a quick perusal of the literature with PubMed or Google Scholar would have revealed to the journalist who put this story together that there is more to this treatment than meets the eye. Journalists have to keep a better eye out for important detail, if they are to fulfill their duty to balanced and coherent coverage of new treatments.

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