tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/health-journalism-11144/articlesHealth journalism – The Conversation2019-05-16T09:01:16Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1170472019-05-16T09:01:16Z2019-05-16T09:01:16ZHow to make health news interesting — without overselling the claims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274878/original/file-20190516-69209-ny5h9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/adult-adorable-woman-lady-boss-putting-1131606356?src=aBUUwMMZ2-WnMpgxmhpbwQ-3-4">Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Health stories are prolific in the news. Each year, thousands of articles are published claiming to have the latest compelling evidence on how we should eat, drink, exercise, sleep, and which medications we should or shouldn’t be taking – among a host of other things.</p>
<p>Not only is there a deluge of information, it is also often conflicting. Reports on statin use, for example, have stated there are associations between taking them and <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/338741/Statins-key-to-a-longer-life">living longer</a>, <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/608210/statins-age-you-faster-new-research-suggests-long-term-use-warning">ageing faster</a>, <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/578174/Statins-stroke-experts">reduced stroke risk</a> and <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1036177/diabtetes-risk-statins-health-concerns">increased diabetes risk</a>. </p>
<p>Every day, these reports are read and shared by millions, potentially influencing our decisions and behaviour – but how do we know that the evidence we’re relying on is strong enough? Writers need easy ways to communicate the strength of evidence without reducing interest or readability. But that can sometimes mean the public is over or undersold its relevance.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-019-1324-7">our latest research</a>, we wanted to find a way to help writers accurately communicate research evidence, without diminishing reader interest in the claims. To do this, we teamed up with nine UK press offices, from journals, universities and funders, to run a randomised trial with health-related press releases. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-believe-the-daily-express-it-takes-a-lot-more-than-carrots-to-beat-cancer-28357">Don't believe the Daily Express, it takes a lot more than carrots to beat cancer</a>
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<p>We focused on press releases because they play a crucial role in science news. When the latest research is published, a press release is used to summarise the study’s most “newsworthy” results. The press release is then sent to journalists who use the material to write the news.</p>
<p>Previous research <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7015">has shown</a> that there is a close correspondence between the content of the press release and the news articles that follow – journalists have little time and tight word limits, so aren’t always able to build a more in-depth piece.</p>
<h2>Mays and mights</h2>
<p>The first aim of our work was to improve the alignment of news claims with the underlying evidence by focusing on the wording of press releases. In the intervention arm of the study, we reserved strong language, such as “causes”, “affects” and “boosts”, for strong causal evidence from trials and experiments.</p>
<p>In observational research, cause and effect is difficult to determine due to uncontrolled variables. For example, an association may exist between ice cream sales and water consumption – not because one causes the other, but because they both increase in sunny weather. So for this type of research we opted for weaker language, such as “may cause”, and “could affect”, in the releases. This distinction is not only easily understood by those who know the convention, but crucially <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27808530">also meaningful</a> to all readers whether or not they have heard of correlations or clinical trials. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274880/original/file-20190516-69169-1bukaar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274880/original/file-20190516-69169-1bukaar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274880/original/file-20190516-69169-1bukaar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274880/original/file-20190516-69169-1bukaar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274880/original/file-20190516-69169-1bukaar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274880/original/file-20190516-69169-1bukaar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274880/original/file-20190516-69169-1bukaar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Journalists use press releases for their stories on a daily basis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/male-journalist-eyeglasses-checking-written-article-644329909?src=GBDGdvHBTeiqP7G2kSswCw-1-51">GaudiLab/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>We found that the strength with which claims are made in press releases generally carries through into the news. Importantly, there was no detrimental effect on the likelihood of a story making it into the news if the language was softer. Whether or not a press release was picked up did not depend on the strength of the causal claims. When headlines and claims were softer in press releases, they were generally softer in news – despite the received wisdom that news is not interested in “mays” and “mights”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-medical-treatment-to-diet-and-lifestyle-choice-how-to-spot-unreliable-health-research-63572">From medical treatment to diet and lifestyle choice: how to spot unreliable health research</a>
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<p>The second aim of our research was to make sure that stories included explicit caveats – such as “this research was observational and cannot show cause and effect” – when needed. Our results showed that these caveats were more likely to appear in the news when they were present in the press release.</p>
<p>A story on liver health and smoking <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3701603/How-quitting-smoking-good-LIVER-given-cigarettes-drink-alcohol-too.html">published on MailOnline</a>, for example, used a quote from the press release to state, “Dr Brown stressed this was an observational study and cannot say whether giving up smoking led to a reduction in drinking or vice versa”. The caveats did not appear to reduce news uptake, and were even associated with more news coverage – a result that matches <a href="http://orca.cf.ac.uk/121559/">parallel research</a> showing that caveats do not reduce reader interest.</p>
<p>Most of these findings are based on observational analyses, and although we cannot show the direct effect of press release content on the news, we do know that journalists read press releases before writing the news. We also cannot show how such news content would affect public health. But our findings suggest that there could be a simple way to communicate the strength of evidence to the public without affecting uptake.</p>
<p>Causal inference is just one element of evidence strength, but there are many others that could, and should, be communicated to readers. For example, findings from larger studies repeated over a long period of time are more robust than those from small, single studies. Although the reporting of evidence strength in the media is only one factor in how people make health-related decisions, we believe that providing more easily decoded news is a step in the right direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117047/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Petroc Sumner receives funding from the ESRC and Wellcome Trust</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Adams receives funding from the European Research Council, and has received funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p>Journalists have to communicate research without reducing interest or readability — but the public needs accuracy.Petroc Sumner, Professor and Head of School, School of Psychology, Cardiff UniversityRachel Adams, Research Associate in Cognition and Neurostimulation, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1057072018-11-01T10:49:34Z2018-11-01T10:49:34ZNumbers in the news? Make sure you don’t fall for these 3 statistical tricks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243330/original/file-20181031-122177-1g4ryme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=565%2C195%2C3812%2C2802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If it seems too good to be true, maybe it is.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/asian-indian-business-people-holding-coffee-335519321">szefei/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/como-entender-las-cifras-en-las-noticias-tres-trucos-estadisticos-106206">Leer en español</a></em>.</p>
<p>“Handy bit of research finds sexuality can be determined by the lengths of people’s fingers” was <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/7512067/finger-length-sexuality-simon-cowell-norton/">one recent headline</a> based on a peer-reviewed study by well-respected researchers at the University of Essex <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1262-z">published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior</a>, the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/journal/0004-0002_Archives_of_Sexual_Behavior">leading scholarly publication</a> in the area of human sexuality. </p>
<p>And, to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UtiewDkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my stats-savvy eye</a>, it is a bunch of hogwash. </p>
<p>Just when it seems that news consumers may be wising up – remembering to ask if science is “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/014107680609900414">peer-reviewed</a>,” the sample size is big enough or who funded the work – along comes a suckerpunch of a story. In this instance, the fast one comes in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.292.6522.746">form of confidence intervals</a>, a statistical topic that no lay person should really ever have to wade through to understand a news article.</p>
<p>But, unfortunately for any number-haters out there, if you don’t want to be fooled by breathless, overhyped or otherwise worthless research, we have to talk about a few statistical principles that could still trip you up, even when all the “legitimate research” boxes are ticked.</p>
<h2>What’s my real risk?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243017/original/file-20181030-76416-1d7g8gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Yum?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kaige/9989706193">Leo/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>One of the most depressing headlines I ever read was “<a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/diet/eightyear-study-finds-heavy-french-fry-eaters-have-double-the-chance-of-death/news-story/1a557be079d7947380c90924dc2f0d15">Eight-year study finds heavy French fry eaters have ‘double’ the chance of death</a>.” “Ugh,” I said out loud, sipping my glass of red wine with a big ole basket of perfectly golden fries in front of me. Really?</p>
<p>Well, yes, it’s true according to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.117.154872">peer-reviewed study published</a> in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Eating french fries does double your risk of death. But, how many french fries, and moreover, what was my original risk of death? </p>
<p>The study says that if you eat fried potatoes three times per week or more, you will double your risk of death. So let’s take an average person in this study: a 60-year-old man. What is his risk of death, regardless of how many french fries he eats? One percent. That means that if you line up 100 60-year-old men, at least one of them will die in the next year simply because he is a 60-year-old man.</p>
<p>Now, if all 100 of those men eat fried potatoes at least three times per week for their whole lives, yes, their risk of death doubles. But what is 1 percent doubled? Two percent. So instead of one of those 100 men dying over the course of the year, two of them will. And they get to eat fried potatoes three times a week or more for their entire lives – sounds like a risk I’m willing to take.</p>
<p>This is a statistical concept called <a href="https://understandinguncertainty.org">relative risk</a>. If the chance of getting some disease is 1 in a billion, even if you quadruple your risk of coming down with it, your risk is still only 4 in a billion. It ain’t gonna happen.</p>
<p>So next time you see an increase or decrease in risk, the first question you should ask is “an increase or decrease in risk from what original risk.”</p>
<p>Plus, like me, could those men have been enjoying a glass of wine or pint of beer with their fried potatoes? Could something else have actually been the culprit? </p>
<h2>Eating cheese before bed equals die by tangled bedsheets?</h2>
<p>Baby boxes have become a <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/national/what-baby-box-and-why-are-some-states-giving-them-new-parents/5Hh8Zk1AvhQd6p6IcNhXQI/">trendy state-sponsored gift</a> to new parents, meant to provide newborns with a safe place to sleep. The initiative grew from a Finnish effort started in the late 1930s to reduce sleep-related death in infants. The cardboard box includes a few essentials: some diapers, baby wipes, a onesie, breast pads and so on. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243021/original/file-20181030-76402-7atk0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Contents of a Finnish ‘maternity package’ before a newborn baby moves in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/roxeteer/2037806537">Visa Kopu/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Finland’s infant mortality rate decreased at a rapid rate with the introduction of these baby boxes, and the country now has one of the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?locations=FI">lowest infant mortality rates in the world</a>. So it makes sense to suppose that these baby boxes caused the infant mortality rate to go down.</p>
<p>But guess what also changed? <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39366596">Prenatal care</a>. In order to qualify for the baby box, a woman was required to visit health clinics starting during the first four months of her pregnancy.</p>
<p>In 1944, 31 percent of Finnish mothers received prenatal education. In 1945, it had jumped to 86 percent. The baby box was not responsible for the change in infant mortality rates; rather, it was education and early health checks.</p>
<p>This is a classic case of <a href="http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/causation-vs-correlation/">correlation not being the same as causation</a>. The introduction of baby boxes and the decrease in infant mortality rates are related but one didn’t cause the other.</p>
<p>However, that little fact hasn’t stopped baby box companies from popping up left, right and center, selling things like the “Baby Box Bundle: Finland Original” for a mere US$449.99. And <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/us_states_embrace_baby_boxes">U.S. states use tax dollars</a> to hand a version out to new mothers.</p>
<p>So the next time you see a link or association – like how eating cheese is linked to dying by <a href="http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=7">becoming entangled in your bedsheets</a> – you should ask “What else could be causing that to happen?”</p>
<h2>When margin of error is bigger than the effect</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm">Recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a> show national unemployment dropping from 3.9 percent in August to 3.7 percent in September. When compiling these figures, the bureau obviously doesn’t go around asking every person whether they have a job or not. It asks a small sample of the population and then generalizes the unemployment rate in that group to the entire United States.</p>
<p>This means the official level of unemployment at any given time is an estimate – a good guess, but still a guess. This “plus or minus error” is defined by something statisticians call a <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability/confidence-intervals-one-sample">confidence interval</a>. </p>
<p>What the data actually says is that it appears the number of unemployed people nationwide <a href="https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpssigsuma.pdf">decreased by 270,000</a> – but with a margin of error, as defined by the confidence interval, of plus or minus 263,000. It’s easier to announce a single number like 270,000. But sampling always comes with a margin of error and it’s more accurate to think of that single estimate as a range. In this case, statisticians believe the real number of unemployed people went down by somewhere between just 7,000 on the low end and 533,000 on the high end.</p>
<p>This is the same issue that happened with the finger length defining sexuality study - the plus or minus error associated with these estimates can simply negate any certainty in the results. </p>
<p>The most obvious example of confidence intervals making our lives confusing is in polling. Pollsters take a sample of the population, ask who that sample is going to vote for, and then infer from that what the entire population is going to do on Election Day. When the races are close, the plus or minus error associated with their polls of the sample negate any real knowledge of who is going to win, making the races “too close to call.”</p>
<p>So the next time you see a number being stated about an entire population where it would have been impossible to ask every single person or test every single subject, you should ask about the plus or minus error.</p>
<p>Will knowing these three aspects of statistical misleads mean that you never get fooled? Nope. But they sure will help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liberty Vittert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shrewd media consumers think about these three statistical pitfalls that can be the difference between a world-changing announcement and misleading hype.Liberty Vittert, Visiting Assistant Professor in Statistics, Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/536772016-02-11T16:05:13Z2016-02-11T16:05:13ZThe logic of journal embargoes: why we have to wait for scientific news<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111203/original/image-20160211-29190-1yx92jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Extra, extra! The embargo's lifted, read all about it.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=248829895&src=id">Newspapers image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rumors were flying through the blogosphere this winter: physicists at the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (<a href="https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/">LIGO</a>) may finally have directly detected <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-waves-6-cosmic-questions-they-can-tackle-1.19337">gravitational waves</a>, ripples in the fabric of space-time predicted by Einstein 100 years ago in his general theory of relativity. Gravitational waves were predicted to be produced by cataclysmic events such as the collision of two black holes.</p>
<p>If true, it would be a very big deal: a rare chance for scientists to grab the attention of the public through news of cutting-edge research. So why were the scientists themselves keeping mum?</p>
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<p>This wouldn’t be the first time scientists thought they had detected gravitational waves. In March 2014, a group claimed to have done so. In that case, scientists announced their discovery when they posted an article in <a href="http://arxiv.org">arXiv</a>, a preprint server where physicists and other scientists share research findings prior to acceptance by a peer-reviewed publications. Turns out that group was <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-waves-discovery-now-officially-dead-1.16830">wrong</a> – they were actually looking at galactic dust. </p>
<p>The LIGO scientists were more careful. Fred Raab, head of the LIGO laboratory, <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2016/after-gravitation-wave-rumors-its-getting-close-to-go-time-for-advanced-ligo-results/">explained</a>:</p>
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<p>As we have done for the past 15 years, we take data, analyze the data, write up the results for publication in scientific journals, and once the results are accepted for publication, we announce results broadly on the day of publication or shortly thereafter. </p>
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<p>And that’s what they did, timing their news conferences and media outreach to coincide with the <a href="http://physics.aps.org/featured-article-pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102">official publication</a> in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters about their discovery. Why did they delay their public announcement rather than spread the word as widely as possible as soon as possible?</p>
<h2>Science’s standard operating procedure</h2>
<p>Although it may sound unnecessarily cautious, the process Raab described is how most scientists prepare and vet discoveries prior to announcing them to the world – and, indeed, it’s the process most scientific journals insist upon. <em>Nature</em>, for example, <a href="http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/embargo.html">prohibits</a> authors from speaking with the press about a submitted paper until the week before publication, and then only under conditions set by the journal. </p>
<p>Scientific publishing serves both the scientist and the public. It’s a quid pro quo: the authors get to claim priority for the result – meaning they got there before any other scientists did – and in return the public (including competing scientists) gets access to the experimental design, the data and the reasoning that led to the result. Priority in the form of scientific publishing earns scientists their academic rewards, including more funding for their research, jobs, promotions and prizes; in return, they reveal their work at a level of detail that other scientists can build on and ideally replicate and confirm. </p>
<p>News coverage of a scientific discovery is another way for scientists to claim priority, but without the vetted scientific paper right there alongside it, there is no quid pro quo. The claim is without substance, and the public, while titillated, does not benefit – because no one can act on the claim until the scientific paper and underlying data are available.</p>
<p>Thus, most scientific journals insist on a “press embargo,” a time during which scientists and reporters who are given advanced copies of articles agree not to publish in the popular press until the scientific peer review and publishing process is complete. With the advent of <a href="http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/oct00/tomaiuolo&packer.htm">preprint servers</a>, however, this process itself is evolving. </p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM197706022962204">First introduced</a> in 1977, journal embargoes reflect a scientific journal’s desire both to protect its own <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM198110013051408">newsworthiness</a> and to protect the public from misinformation. If a result is wrong (as was the case with the 2014 gravitational wave result), peer review is supposed to catch it. At the least, it means experts other than the researchers themselves examined the experimental design and the data and agreed that the conclusions were justified and the interpretations reasonable. </p>
<p>Often, results are more “nuanced” than the news article or press conference suggests. Yes, this new drug combination makes a (minor) difference, but it doesn’t cure cancer. Finally, the result could be correct, but not because of the data in that paper, and the premature press conference claims an unwarranted priority that can disrupt other research. In all these cases, having access to the research article and the underlying data is critical for the news to be meaningful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111035/original/image-20160210-12153-9yc2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peer-reviewed and published.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maggie Villiger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Purposes of a press embargo</h2>
<p>A press embargo has additional benefits for the reporter, the journal and the public.</p>
<p>Multiple journalists get an equal chance to publish a well-researched and balanced article. In exchange for respecting the journal’s press embargo, reporters find out what’s being published in advance of publication. This gives multiple journalists a chance to read the scientific article, find experts who can help them make sense of the article, and publish a carefully crafted story. From the scientist’s (and scientific journal’s) perspective, this maximizes the quality and quantity of the coverage by the press.</p>
<p>The public gains access to the scientific article very close to the time they read the news story. The popular press tends to bias a story toward what’s “newsworthy” about it – and that sometimes winds up exaggerating or otherwise inaccurately summarizing the scientific article. When that article relates to human health, for instance, it’s important that doctors have access to the original scientific paper before their patients start inquiring about new treatments they’d heard about in the news.</p>
<p>Other scientific experts gain access to the scientific article as soon as the findings become news. Scientists who jump the gun and allow their research to become news before publication in an academic journal are making unvetted claims that can turn out to be less important once the peer-reviewed article eventually appears.</p>
<p>A press embargo can protect a scientist’s claim for priority in the face of competition from other scientists and journals. Scientists generally accept journal publication dates as indicators of priority – but when a discovery makes news, the journal considering a competitor’s paper often both releases its authors from the embargo and races the paper to publication. And, if your competitor’s paper comes out first, you’ve lost the priority race.</p>
<p>The embargo system allows time for prepublication peer review. Most experiments designed to address research questions are complicated and indirect. Reviewers often require additional experiments or analyses prior to publication. Prepublication peer review can take a long time, and its value <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/dmm.001388">has been</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2015/sep/07/peer-review-preprints-speed-science-journals">questioned</a>, but it is currently the norm. If a news story came out on the paper while it was under review, the process of peer review could be jeopardized by pressure to “show the data” based on the news article. Many journals would decline publication under those conditions, leaving the authors and public in limbo.</p>
<p>I know of no case in which talking about a discovery in advance of scientific publication helps the public. Yes, “breaking news” is exciting. But journalists and other writers can tell riveting stories about science that convey the excitement of discovery without breaking journal embargoes. And the scientific community can continue to work on speeding its communication with the public while preserving the quid pro quo of scientific publication.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivian Siegel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sometimes big research news bypasses the usual scientific publishing process. Here’s why that’s not good for scientists or the public.Vivian Siegel, Visiting Instructor of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/283572014-06-24T04:40:23Z2014-06-24T04:40:23ZDon’t believe the Daily Express, it takes a lot more than carrots to beat cancer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51949/original/2mhpncpm-1403531386.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Miracle diet suggestions from the Daily Express.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/D_Hollingsworth/status/479743141806096385">D_Hollingsworth/Twitter</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/483656/Carrots-hold-key-to-beating-cancer-say-scientists">Another story</a> about how some food holds the cure for cancer is making headlines in the Daily Express. This time the saviour is the humble carrot. But it isn’t its first time in the limelight. In March, the Daily Mail <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2589999/They-help-dark-carrots-reduce-risk-prostate-cancer.html">claimed</a> that eating carrots is a way to avoid prostate cancer. But, as is the case more often than not, the scientific study published in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00394-014-0667-2">European Journal of Nutrition</a> reveals that there is little data to make the claim whether the purported effect was specific to carrots more than any other vegetable.</p>
<p>Many studies suggest that consumption of fruit and vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of a variety of cancers. But the charity organisation Cancer Research UK <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/dietandhealthyeating/foodnutrientsandcancer/diet-and-cancer-different-foods-and-nutrients">stresses</a>, “the link between diet and cancer is complex and difficult to unravel”. That is an important caveat. There is little chance that the key to preventing one of the world’s deadliest diseases has been on our dinner plates the whole time.</p>
<h2>What does the lab say</h2>
<p>The lead researcher of the new study, Dr. Kirsten Brandt at Newcastle University, has been studying naturally occurring chemicals found in certain vegetables, called polyacetylenes, for many years. They have been shown to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22263789">kill leukaemia cells in the laboratory</a>. And a compound which can be easily extracted from something as common and cheap as carrots is bound to arouse interest.</p>
<p>This, however, is only the first step in testing any potential new anti-cancer chemicals. In their study, Brandt and her colleagues also used a mouse model – as proxy for humans – which has a genetic mutation that increases the chances of developing intestinal cancer. Mice fed a diet, where a fifth of the food was powdered carrot, had fewer and smaller tumours than mice who were fed a normal diet.</p>
<p>The scientists will now look to see if this tumour-preventing effect is also seen in people by doing a small-scale study involving 20 participants. This, if successful, will have to be followed up by even larger scale trials, before carrots can be considered beneficial in cancer prevention.</p>
<p>Sarah Warner, a PhD student in Brandt’s research group, described her project to me. “I’m going to be looking at whether a portion of carrots consumed per day can affect the risk of someone developing a chronic disease by looking at DNA damage and biomarkers related to intestinal cancer,” she said. </p>
<p>All cancers are a result of damaged DNA. So commonly consumed foods that reduce this damage could be a significant step in preventing cancer, especially in individuals who have a genetic predisposition to the disease. But the current results do not imply that they “hold the key to beating cancer”.</p>
<p>What is perhaps more interesting is that the preparation of the carrots influences how much polyacetylene actually gets from the food into our bodies. “I’ll be investigating how best to prepare the carrots, so that when people eat it they get the most polyacetylenes,” she said.</p>
<h2>There is no miracle cure, of course</h2>
<p>Because of the chemical composition of the polyacetylenes, she predicts that cooking them in fat may cause more to be lost into the fat than preparing the carrots in water by boiling or steaming. As with any plant, carrots are a combination of hundreds of different chemicals, including beta-carotene which has been well described to aid vision in the dark. Dissecting exactly which chemicals in plants are responsible for observed health benefits is notoriously tricky. </p>
<p>“We may be able to figure this out as white carrots are rich in polyacetylenes, but don’t contain beta-carotene like orange carrots do,” Warner said.</p>
<p>Sarah hopes that contrasting these two varieties of carrots may allow the research team to pinpoint the chemicals that are responsible for their early cancer-protective findings, and make sure that by looking at polyacetylenes, they are focusing their research on the right chemicals. </p>
<p>Will purified polyacetylene tablets be the next health food trend raved about in celebrity magazines? “Probably not, because polyacetylenes are quite toxic in high concentrations. In the small quantities found in carrots, we think they may be beneficial. If it was to be used more like a drug, we would have to be really careful to get the dose right,” Warner said.</p>
<p>While this piece of research is interesting and it may lead to great advances in the fight against cancer, the researchers are not making that claim just yet. But in their desperation to sensationalise headlines, newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Daily Express end up running stories that <a href="http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/">contradict each other</a> – sometimes the same foodstuff can apparently cause and prevent cancer. These stories erode the public’s trust in health journalism. When reporting such stories, it would be better to focus on the scientific method and the incremental development than to make bold, hollow claims. </p>
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<p><em>Next, read this: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-save-time-a-rule-of-thumb-to-choose-what-health-stories-to-ignore-28235">How to save time: a rule-of-thumb to choose what health stories to ignore</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28357/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Forster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Another story about how some food holds the cure for cancer is making headlines in the Daily Express. This time the saviour is the humble carrot. But it isn’t its first time in the limelight. In March…Victoria Forster, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cancer Research, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.