Cancer News Offers Readers Hope and Hype, But No Help
APRIL 14, 2010
David Casarett, MD, authored a column in the Huffington Post, describing a new study he co-authored that found when newspapers and magazines cover cancer news, 95 percent reported exclusively on aggressive treatments like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and bone marrow transplants, while only 13 percent mentioned that those aggressive treatments can fail. Moreover, less than one third mentioned the adverse effects--like nausea, hair loss, immune suppression, and fatigue--that these treatments can cause. “The real problem with these articles is not the information that's missing from them, but rather the biased picture that they give of what it's like to have cancer,” says Casarett. Additional coverage appeared in HemOnc Today and MedPage Today.
