Health Care Journalism: Who Does It Serve?
There is a code of ethics for Health care Journalists, just as there is for health care providers.
https://healthjournalism.org/principles
However, health care news is a mine field that can cost patients their lives. Two recent examples:
1) Stories about how elderly with no history of heart disease and no risk factors of heart disease should not be started on aspirin for heart disease prevention since their risk of getting an ulcer from the aspirin is higher than their risk of developing the health disease that they obviously are not going to get. These have been presented in such a way that patients have gotten the impression that aspirin is bad for the elderly. I have encountered elderly heart patients with coronary artery disease and stents who have stopped their aspirin because of these stories. This is not good. They are at high risk for platelet clumping followed by acute myocardial infarction followed by congestive heart failure and death without that aspirin 81 mg a day. Note that there are no stories about how Plavix/Eliquis/Brilinta can cause ulcers. I see upper gastrointestinal bleeds in patients on these much more than I see it on people taking aspirin 81 mg.
2) Stories about how a few lots of Losartan were contaminated have turned into rumors that all Losartan causes cancer. I have seen patients who have stopped their Losartan as a result. Note that Losartan not only controls the blood pressure. It also relieves strain on the heart in people with congestive heart failure and prevents kidney damage in people with diabetes. Losartan is the cheapest of its class, the ARBs.
Sensationalism sells copy. But I wonder how many health care journalists print what their corporate masters in Big Pharm and Wall Street tell them to write. And before you accuse me of wearing a tinfoil hate, remember that during the W. Bush administration, the FDA banned ergot for migraines and quinine for leg cramps in the same day, increasing the potential market for Glaxo-Smith-Klines Requip and Imitrex . And the makers of Seldane (at that time the only non-sedating antihistamine) successfully petitioned the FDA to ban Seldane one month before it was due to go generic, meaning there would be no cheap generic competition for their new, patent non-sedating antihistamine, Allegra.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-dec-30-mn-3495-story.html
Meaning that Big Pharm makes big money of they can take away patient's options to use cheap, generic medications.
Maybe we need a Media Matters for health care journalism.
