The Media Matter: A Call for Straightforward Medical Reporting

Believe nothing that you see in the newspapers … if you see anything in them that you know is true, begin to doubt it at once.

–Sir William Osler (1)

While many physicians may share Osler's sentiments about the sometimes sloppy and sensationalized press coverage of health care, doctors and researchers have real reasons to help journalists do their job well. The public pays attention to health in the media—over half of U.S. adults report that they follow health news closely; only community events and crime get more attention (2). Thus, the press is well positioned to educate the public about health and health risks and about what medicine can (and cannot) do. In short, the press could be a positive influence on the nation's thinking about health.

This issue contains an impressive example of the power of the press to educate the public. Haas and colleagues (3) report on the decline in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) use following the release of the main findings of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) (4), a randomized trial that examined the efficacy of HRT in the primary prevention of heart disease. The WHI received enormous media coverage—more than 400 newspaper stories and 2500 television–radio stories appeared in the month after release of the findings. Haas and coworkers studied women in a San Francisco mammography registry and found that the proportion of women receiving HRT decreased by about one third (from 40% to 28%) during that period. Recently, investigators from New Zealand reported similar findings: Use of HRT in that country initially decreased by about half among women who had been using it before release of the WHI results (5). Although some women and their physicians may have responded directly to the WHI results, we think the rapid …