Jan
28
Tips for Understanding Health Studies, FDA Rules, and Drug Marketing Language
January 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Posted by: Kathleen Daniel
I was so glad to find this site that gives tips to journalists on medical reporting, because statistics in health studies can be maddeningly opaque, and of course the devil is in the details, since marketers can “language” their statistics in a variety of ways to suit their purposes. The particular issue about paying attention to relative risk or absolute risk in reporting risk of disease -or drug side effects – came up for us when Jennifer and I were researching and writing our report on the Selling of Osteoporosis, where drug companies report the relative risk reduction benefits of taking fosamax and other biophosphonate drugs in a way that puts then in a positive light. BUT it’s usually the absolute risk that’s useful reported by the media, as advised here, because that’s where the real meaning lies. As you can see, the difference in this example with diabetes between 1% and 50% is night and day! And also, because out of habit doctors also expect absolute risk reporting, they can also miss the crucial distinction if they’re hurried and not thinking critically.
Anyway, as a pharmacist, Jennifer spent more minutes (hours) than I want to admit explaining the difference to me – and it took her some time to get to the bottom of the numbers since she found it hard to believe that she was witnessing such blatant ‘massaging’ of data – and also that it’s perfectly legal – but it is, so it’s crucial to be medically literate in order to be able to critically evaluate data from medical studies.
« « Previous: Pain Free Mammogram Technology Waiting FDA Approval| Next: Using an iPod to Improve Symptoms of Alzheimer’s » »
