Do newspaper business pages have different editorial standards than the rest of the paper? Does evidence and balance matter less on the business page?
The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune had a massive story on D1 of the Sunday business section, complete with color art, explaining that "a simple device that encases the heart may offer a new tool to combat" heart failure. The device, a mesh-like sock, is made by a local company. The results of a 300-patient clinical trial were going to be (and were) released that day at the American Heart Association's annual meeting. The story did not have one comment from an independent medical source. But it did promote the company's "bullish" attitude about "the future of their unsual device as well as the company's prospects."
Then Monday's Star Tribune had another story, announcing, again, that the trial results were, indeed, released. The sock group was compared with a non-sock group of patients. The sock group scored better in "improvement" (not defined).
There was no mention of complication rates. There was no discussion of whether the results were statistically significant, or whether they could have been due to chance. But this is a hometown newspaper writing about a hometown company.
The Wall Street Journal also reported on the sock study, but pointed out that the "sock didn't lead to a significant improvement in ejection fraction, the percent of blood that is pumped out of the left ventricle during a beat and a widely used measure of the strength of the heart."
You've probably seen this before and will see it again: it may be too easy for hometown companies to get favorable coverage and it may not be in the best interests of readers (or patients). There was also no mention of costs, which is almost unthinkable in today's critical health care environment. The device is not yet approved by the FDA.
Posted by schwitz at November 8, 2004 12:52 PM