Communicating Science 13w211

Recently, my sister, who also studied science here at UBC, brought home a newspaper article that outlined and refuted new guidelines published by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) promoting the increased use of statin drugs. In showing me the article her intent was not to convey what she thought may be useful or enlightening information, but rather to see if I might notice a glaringly basic scientific falsity reported therein. I spotted it almost immediately. It was right there, reported in The Globe and Mail – Canada’s newspaper of record – by public health reporter André Picard.

“… based on the assumption that reducing HDL [high-density lipoprotein] and raising LDL [low-density lipoprotein] would lower the risk of heart attack and stroke” (Globe and Mail, 25 November 2013).

Although the mistake may admittedly not have been that noticeable (my sister’s non-scientist boyfriend didn’t see it), or indeed that significant, and was undoubtedly unintentional, I think it points to three underlying issues in science journalism. Firstly, our 24-hour news cycle is not necessarily conducive to the thorough editing and fact-checking that is required, especially when writing about something with which one is not familiar. Secondly, science education does not promote journalism as a potential career path for graduates, which leaves reporting of scientific and health issues to journalists who perhaps do not have any formal background in science. And lastly, popular media often reports on science stories without a proper regard as to the validity of research that has informed their conclusions (see the infamous MMR vaccine controversy).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWw29H25tII[/youtube]

In spotting the non-trivial blunder, I found myself reading the rest of the article with restrained skepticism as to the value of the authors opinion. This, I think, demonstrates the importance of getting the facts straight; one simple mistake can discredit an entire article. I do not profess to be immune from typographical errors and indeed I have, on more than one occasion,  proof-read a report several times over only to later discover [after I submitted it, of course] that I had made an amateurish, if not common, mistake. Would I, or another scientist, have made the same mistake made in the article? Maybe. However, I suspect that if a health expert had proof-read the article prior to publishing, the slip-up would not have gone unnoticed. While peer review as it is applied to scholarly journals is not without faults, I do think it serves an important purpose and could be readily, perhaps less stringently, applied in popular media publications.

The gaffe has since be corrected in the online version of the paper, but the original article now hangs on our fridge as both a bit of a running joke as well as a continuing reminder of the importance of that most common adage that ‘you can’t believe everything you read’, even when it comes to statements of apparently simple facts.

– Joseph Burant