"Miracles," Cures, and Truth Vs Media Hype

William Raspberry once wrote that "saying you saw something on the Internet is like saying that you heard it at the barbershop." For once, I find myself in total agreement with Mr. Raspberry. What follows is my latest rant against inaccurate reporting.

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), long known to produce dramatic improvement in those with Parkinson's disease, is being touted across the web as a potential treatment for other conditions such as depression, Tourette syndrome, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Unfortunately, the majority of these so-called "news items" featured on the Internet seem to have been essentially "lifted" from mainstream media sources that present a distorted view of what the original scientific article actually said.

As an example, consider the recent surge in postings regarding the "Brain Pacemaker May Cure Depression" story.

This news item is based on a report published the journal Biological Psychiatry, in which researchers at Krembil Neurosciences Centre-Toronto Western Hospital report their initial results involving 20 patients that continued to have severe depression despite being treated with electro-convulsive treatment (ECT, also known as "shock" treatment) and maximum medical therapy. It is at this point that what you might have read, or heard, diverges from what was actually said in the report.

The original report clearly states that, of the 20 patients treated with DBS, only 14 reported "significant" improvement in their depression one year after their day of surgery. Furthermore, the authors of the report never use the word "cured" but instead note that all patients continue to require medical and psychiatric therapy. Furthermore, the investigators did not address the question of whether the simple act of placing the electrodes in the brain could have explained the improvements in their patients' condition.

The same problems are encountered when examining the media reports of similar "miracle" results involving DBS in conditions such as Tourette syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Scientific reports concerning a small number of very difficult to treat patients that have been evaluated over relatively short periods of time since their surgeries are hailed as "miracles" by writers who never bother to read the original reports.

This leads to the question of why such apparent journalistic mischief is tolerated and, apparently, expected. My answer distributes the responsibility evenly.

First of all, both the "blogosphere" and the "mainstream media" are guilty of such sensationalism simply because "eyeballs equal dollars" in the commerce of information. In the traditional media (those that existed before 1995) this translates into "more readers and/or more viewers equals more advertising revenue" while accuracy and media ethics become something to be praised while simultaneously being flushed down the nearest toilet.

Secondly, I hold that both branches of the fourth estate are guilty of telling the public what the public "wants" to hear rather than the more unpleasant facts. A case in point is the "childhood vaccinations cause autism" panic of the 1990s.

It was alleged that since a preservative found in routinely-administered childhood vaccinations contained mercury, and that since many cases of autism are diagnosed within a few months of receiving such vaccinations, there must be some connection between the mercury-containing vaccines and autism.

Parents of autistic children immediately picked up the battle cry and the media responded with news items that documented the efforts of these parents, and others concerned, to ban the use of mercury-based preservatives in childhood vaccines. They were successful in their efforts and these preservatives were removed. But then something very strange happened: the number of children newly diagnosed with autism did not decline after the alleged cause was removed but actually rose following the replacement of the supposed culprit!

Logically, if something in the vaccines were causing autism and the alleged cause was removed from the vaccine, the number of new cases of autism would decline at the same time. Since this was not the case it is obvious that the hypothesis regarding vaccines was wrong! Do you recall hearing about this "non-decline" in the media or reading about it on a blog where the opinions of the "autism is caused by vaccines" partisans hold sway?

Of course not!

That's what I mean by "telling people what they want to hear." The parents wanted something to blame for their child's diagnosis of autism. A theory was advanced that the preservative in vaccinations may have had a role in the subsequent diagnosis of autism. The mainstream media, and the blogosphere, immediately condemned vaccinations as the cause of autism and continues to do so despite the simple fact that the original hypothesis was clearly wrong!

Try to find one example of a retraction on someone's blog that had had previously condemned vaccinations as the cause of autism. Good luck on that fool's errand.

My purpose has simply been to remind readers that news items of the types categorized above should be viewed with a large dose of skepticism. My rule of thumb is this: when the item in question hails news of a "breakthrough" or "startling new evidence," the more likely that item is misleading.

In other words, don't let emotions or personal bias regarding a topic influence your ability to think straight.