Reporting on Medical Issues: Consider the Source

This semester, I've learned a lot about reporting on medical studies. I've become more adept at reading and understanding the studies, and assessing their meaning for public health.

A friend on Facebook shared an article from the Health section of the Inquisitr, which promises to deliver "daily viral news by e-mail" so you'll "never miss the internet's hottest stories!" So as I began to read the article, my Junk Science Detector was fully engaged.

There are quite a few problems with the article, but I'll focus on just two:

1. Misinterpretation of a study
2. A questionable source

Although only one graph was allotted for this study, it was crucial to the article's argument that bras = breast cancer risk. The article states: "Harvard did a study in 1991 that showed greatly increased incidence in breast cancer in those who wear bras over those who don’t." They fail to link us to the study, and for good reason. If they direct us to the study, we might find out that they simplified its findings and extracted meaning that wasn't there.

You don't have to read farther than the abstract to see what the authors of the study found (my emphasis added):

Premenopausal women who do not wear bras had half the risk of breast cancer compared with bra users (P about 0.09), possibly because they are thinner and likely to have smaller breasts. Among bra users, larger cup size was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer (P about 0.026), although the association was found only among postmenopausal women and was accounted for, in part, by obesity. These data suggest that bra cup size (and conceivably mammary gland size) may be a risk factor for breast cancer.

It is never said that those who wear bras are at an increased risk for breast cancer.

The article's only source is the word of "medical anthropologists". While research in medical anthropology contributes greatly to public health initiatives, I personally don't think that Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer are qualified to be discussing their supposed medical findings from their research about bra use and cancer risk.

A legitimate journalist would have interviewed additional medical professionals, and hopefully a doctor who agreed with the findings as well as one who disagreed. My guess is that the conclusion would have illuminated a kind of middle ground impact for women.

If you follow the links included in the article, they all circle back to work by Singer and Grismaijer, plus holistic and all-natural health websites.

Without discounting the value in this perspective, I believe it is important for the public to develop a discerning eye when reading so-called health news. Sometimes it's not news. Worse, sometimes it's not based in peer-reviewed research.

These articles serve one purpose: to drive clicks to the website and increase revenue stream. And yes, I realize this post helps them achieve this goal. In the process, the public is subjected to misinformation.

While I don't think that ceasing bra-wearing will be harmful for women, this example shows how easily junk science can go viral and inspire change in the way the public thinks and acts on their health. A more serious consequence would be, for example, a "news article" promoting an anti-vaccine agenda. This is much more dangerous than burning your bra.

Journalists are responsible for the information they report to the public, and for the way we present information to the public. And readers have a personal responsibility to follow the links and get to the source. You'll be better off for it.