"The media are a very important source of public health information," says Dr. Stephen Soumerai, a study co-author and HMS professor of ambulatory care and prevention. "But stories on new drugs can be misleading when they fail to address potential conflicts of interest and don't discuss both relative and absolute benefits, risks and costs. We hope this study provides some focus for journalists and editors who are continually striving for greater accuracy in medical coverage."
"The media perform a vital service to the public when they accurately report drug benefits and risks and when they identify potential conflicts of interest of experts quoted," says Lisa Bero, co-author of the study, an expert on industry-university relations. Bero is an associate professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco.
Moynihan developed the study while serving as a Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy in the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (DACP), a joint teaching and research department of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), a Massachusetts-based managed care organization. Moynihan worked with primary mentor and senior researcher Stephen Soumerai, head of DACP's Drug Policy Research Group. Dennis Ross-Degnan of Harvard Medical School, Lisa Bero and Kirby Lee of UC, San Francisco, and David Henry of the University of Newcastle, Australia were also paramount to the study's development, methodology, and conclusions.
The study's authors obtained stories on the coverage of the three drugs from 36 U.S. newspapers, including both large-circulation national papers and regional papers, between 1994 and 1998. Approximately 400 stories were reviewed, and 180 were included. From television, coverage from nightly network news
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Contact: John Lacey
john_lacey@hms.harvard.edu
617-432-0441
Harvard Medical School
31-May-2000