The age-old stigma against people with epilepsy is alive and well in the print media. That's the consensus of neurologists at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland who screened several hundred recent popular press articles on epilepsy/seizures for misinformation or outright errors. Their study appears in this month's edition of the journal Neurology in an article titled The Scarlet E.
Thirty-one percent of the sampled stories contained gross mistakes, including inaccuracy about the science, overestimates of risk of dying from seizures or exaggerated treatment claims, says Hopkins neurologist Gregory L. Krauss, M.D., who led the research team. "Some articles even recycled ancient misconceptions linking seizures to the devil," he says. Forty-five percent were guilty of the less dangerous but still offensive practice of referring to patients as "epileptics," Krauss adds.
"The print media reflect and shape current views about epilepsy and other neurological conditions," says Krauss, "but they also have a real potential for further misconceptions, particularly about brain disorders.
"Because of the historic stigma associated with epilepsy," says Krauss, "many of my patients continue to feel shamed or hide their disorder. The press perpetuates this stigma when they use demonic terms, describe typical seizures as "deathly" or even when they de-humanize them as 'epileptics.' While we realize the press reflects attitudes in society as a whole, we were a little surprised at how widespread the stigma is in newspapers and magazines."
One of the "last straws" that prompted the study, Krauss says, was a piece in a popular sports news magazine that praised a team trainer who violently restrained a baseball player during a seizure, calling the trainer a hero. The young man's tooth was knocked out when the coach tried to pry his jaws open. Players were quoted who said the seizure was "killing" their teammate or said the situation reminded t
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Contact: Marjorie Centofanti
mcentofanti@jhmi.edu
410-955-8725
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
22-May-2000