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Published on 08/04/1999 All articles from this issue

Health coverage - who can you trust?

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By David L. Grey

Media Watch

"More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette (according to a recent nationwide survey)."

We have come a long way since this now-infamous advertisement more than 50 years ago. Communication, even many sales pitches, regarding medical information has vastly improved in quantity and often, thus, quality.

But the ever-escalating Internet is creating even more concerns about what both the more established and newer media are offering and competing for in the health fields. Part of the answer is too much.

The number of health-related Web sites is now estimated at 20,000 and of all kinds. At minimum, as many as 22 million Americans are also estimated to be seeking or receiving medical information online.

Add these to all the best and less-so selling health books, along with multiple newspaper and magazine columns, television and radio science/medical/health/fitness specialists - plus endless ad campaigns - and the rushes to obsession by the media and consuming public are obvious.

Is this primarily a national phenomenon? Of course, but some of its roots can be found locally through a KGO's Dr. Dean Edell. Or traced even to debates in the Los Altos Town Crier.

On June 23 the Town Crier ran an in-depth cover article on autism. On Page 6 was a related story under the heading, "Do vaccinations (for children) cause autism?" The strong implication was: could be or yes.

On June 24 on his Web site, Dr. Edell singled out and singed the Town Crier for that vaccine story, which he called, varyingly, misleading and without foundation. Almost the exact wording could be found in early pages on media coverage problems in his broadly promoted new book.

No surprises here. The original story might well have relied too much on one news source. Much as, perhaps, a celebrity media doctor could be critiqued for possible narrowed or "biased" interests in the very news ventures that feed him.

The point of this episode is that it is reflected probably hourly as medical concerns and interests are compounded and relations between health care providers and patients evolve with more initiative and even assertiveness expected from health receivers.

But newer managed health care can also lead to pitfalls of more oversimplified and even manipulated media information, including revelations of latest good/bad news longevity studies and medical scares, remedies, cures.

It is essential to know, therefore, especially with all media, whom do you trust and why? How does this translate in your doctor-patient relations?

Can and should the Internet be a major part of new health information dialogues? If one accepts most premises found in such as Family PC magazine's August article on "The P@tient Revolution," the answer would be mostly yes. But be careful and recheck the messengers and their sources.

And while we are at it, note where and how we are getting our often-vital information and what we are doing with it. No one is talking sports box scores here.

David L. Grey, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of journalism at San Jose State University where for 24 years he taught and did research on media law and ethics. He is a Mountain View resident.