Media Doctor Canada News

Sex, Lies and Pharmaceuticals--The book

A new book by Ray Moynihan and Barbara Mintzes will be launched in October 2010. Watch this space for details on the Canadian book tour with appearances in Toronto, Victoria, and Vancouver.

Selling Sickness Conference: Amsterdam October 7-8. 2-10

An exciting conference in Amsterdam hosted Healthy Skepticism (Netherlands) assisted by the Dutch Institute for Rational Use of Medicine and Healthy Skepticism (International). The sponsors are the Dutch Ministry of Health and the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate.

The conference is designed for everyone with an interest in pharmaceutical information and promotion including: the public, health professionals, policy makers, regulators, inspectorates, staff of pharmaceutical, advertising and public relations companies, staff of NGOs and journalists.

Panel at Web 2.0 Conference discusses Health News Reporting

Representatives from Media Doctor Canada, Media Doctor Australia and Health News Review were invited to form a panel and speak at a conference about social networking and Web 2.0 applications in medicine, health, health care, and biomedical research.

http://medicine20congress.blogspot.com/2009/09/panel-online-grading-of-health -news.html

Now Free Full Access to the Cochrane Library

All Canadians now have full access to The Cochrane Library, and it's FREE! www.thecochranelibrary.com

On tough questions, vital homework, and not wearing face masks: a veteran health reporter's tips

Veteran health journalists delivers some tips for reporters on reporting on flu.

Public being misled by marketing of medical scans: New research reveals

Authors of a new study warn that private clinics selling high-tech services to screen healthy people for disease could be harming Canadians and placing an undue burden on the public health system.

The study, entitled What's in a Scan? was published by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. The results of the study found that there are prevalent misconceptions about the safety and regulation of CT and PET screening technologies.

The researchers interviewed over 20 experts, analyzed the media reporting and marketing of screening tests using high tech imaging technologies, and conducted a nation-wide public opinion survey of 400 Canadians on the issue to examine how well Canadian consumers are informed about the benefits and risks associated with such screening. The CCPA also developed a Consumer's Guide to Health Screening following the completion of the study.

New Media Doctor Sister site opens in Hong Kong

Media Doctor Canada and Media Doctor Australia have another new sister on the block, Media Doctor Hong Kong. Readers can find both Chinese and English reviews of medical news stories in Hong Kong.
Here's the link:
http://www.mediadoctor.hk/

Naming names: is there an (unbiased) doctor in the house?

Ho hum, another medical scandal in the news. Earlier this month US Senator Chuck Grassley announced his intention to investigate Alan Schatzberg, chairman of the psychiatry department at Stanford University and the incoming president of the American Psychiatric Association, about his multimillion dollar interest in Corcept Therapeutics, a company that is seeking to market a drug that Dr Schatzberg is researching with federal funding, and the extent to which he disclosed and was required to disclose that interest to Stanford.1 In June the New York Times broke a front page story about the alleged failure of three top research psychiatrists at Harvard, each of them a proponent of drug treatment for psychiatric conditions in children, to report that since 2000 they had collectively received more than $4.2m (£2.1m; {euro}2.6m) from various drug companies...

Disease Mongering Is Now Part of the Global Health Debate

Disease mongering is the selling of sickness that widens the boundaries of illness in order to grow markets for those who sell and deliver treatments. It is a process that turns healthy people into patients, causes iatrogenic harm, and wastes precious resources.

Disease mongering is the contemporary form of "medicalisation." It is a process now driven by both corporate and professional interests, and it has become part of the global debate about health care. International consumer groups now target drug company-backed disease mongering as a wasteful threat to public health while the global pharmaceutical industry has been forced to defend its promotion of "lifestyle" medicines for problems like slimming and sexual difficulties...

How well do Canadian media outlets convey medical treatment information?

This April 22, 2008 article in the online journal Open Medicine examines the first year and a half of assessments by Media Doctor Canada.

"Can the public trust medical journals?" : A Conversation with Richard Smith

On November 21, 2007 in Toronto, Open Medicine is hosting an event entitled:
"Can the public trust medical journals?" : A Conversation with Richard Smith, former
editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal and the author of The Trouble with Medical Journals (2006). The lecture is part of a benefit evening for Open Medicine, which includes a cocktail party and reception.

Future Directions in Science Journalism Conference

FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN SCIENCE JOURNALISM ::

November 9 & 10, 2007
Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, UBC
Vancouver, British Columbia

Joining the Conversation: Newspaper Journalists' Views on Working with Researchers

A new report examines relationships between media and researchers and concludes:

* The media can be powerful forces for helping get research used.
* The journalist-researcher relationship is critical to using the media to promote more evidence-based dialogue among policy makers and the public.
* Researchers should treat journalists as knowledge brokers in health policy-making because they bring public attention to issues policy makers are grappling with.

Health reporting needs the QALY treatment

How much is a healthy, happy human life worth to you? How about a year of that good life? A month? A day? An hour?
Keep reading if you want to learn about what a QALY is....

Unhealthy Advocacy: Journalists and Health Screening Tests

Journalists and news organizations sometimes seem to abandon their usual healthy journalistic skepticism when it comes to coverage of certain health screening tests. While the journalistic intent here may be benign, the practice may produce more harm than good..

Read this interview of Gary Schwitzer of our sister site, www.healthnewsreview.org/