Health media watchdog Gary Schwitzer takes a look at their overhyped, non-critical coverage of prostate cancer therapy and being a tool for drug company propaganda.
Negative news does not garner ratings, which is why national health reporting needs to be viewed with a skeptical eye.
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- Is NBC doing more health cheerleading than health reporting?
- Health journalists need to be held to a higher standard
- Crappy health reporting
- Are drug companies trying to influence health journalists?
- Are network morning news shows an emerging public health threat?
- How many proton beam therapy centers does Central Ohio need?
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It is about time that we speak out on poor medical news reporting.
The biggest offender in my opinion is CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon who thinks good looks and a nice smile enable him to be an expert on everything.
His coverage of bird flu and the airplane tb scare are only 2 examples of his directly feeding into public hysteria.
Shame on you Sanjay. Stick to neurosurgery, I am sure you are quite good at that.
Kevin: I drilled into the “media watchdog” column. IMO, he really doesn’t say anything. He just says that X dollars were spent.
Is that good? or bad? or ?????
I asked him to clarify his column.
Kevin: I drilled into the “media watchdog” column, re: Big Pharma lobbying. IMO, he really doesn’t say anything. He just says that X dollars were spent.
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No response. Appears the “watchdog” is against Big Pharma spending money on lobbying. Wonder if that includes taxpayer-funded universities, taxpayer-funded colleges of journalism, and TV station owners?
Weak, ineffectual and valueless, IMO.
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