HealthNewsReview.org

AnneMarie Ciccarella was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. She describes herself as "Fierce advocate, activist, blogger. Passionate about research, evidence based care, empowering others to self advocate." In this podcast, she rants about celebrities telling their own breast cancer experiences in ways that mislead and misinform. See our broader blog post at: http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2016/05/podcast-chemobrainfog-blogger-criticizes-celebrity-breast-cancer-news/

In another of our series of podcasts profiling standouts in health/medical/science journalism, you have the chance to hear from Sharon Begley - someone who has been a class act with an outstanding body of work for nearly 40 years. From Newsweek > Wall Street Journal > Reuters > STAT news. Way too much for us to capture, but well worth a listen. See broader blog post - http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2016/05/podcast-4-decades-of-solid-medical-science-journalism-by-sharon-begley/

This week is the 10th anniversary of the launch of HealthNewsReview.org. We've now published 4,600 articles to try to improve media messages about health care interventions, and to improve the public dialogue about health care. Hear from four experts who have worked with us for that entire time span. http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2016/04/podcast-10th-anniversary-for-healthnewsreview-org/

When news proclaims "a new treatment for migraines," that's going to light up the migraine patient community. But smart patients get upset when they find out the story is misleading. Music credit: "Migraine Blues" by migraine specialist Fred Sheftell, MD. See the broader blog post at: http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2016/04/podcast-abc-stations-mislead-patients-with-migraine-treatment-news/

We profile another outstanding health care journalist as we talk with John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, with support from MedPage Today. He has chosen to specialize in asking some of the tougher questions about financial relationships between industry and researchers and clinicians. Our audio chat is wrapped inside of a broader blog post at http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=46038.

We present another example of how people can be harmed by misleading messages about medical research. Michele Manion leads a rare disease advocacy group, the Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Foundation. She has seen how people with rare diseases may hang on every word of possible hope. Recently a medical journal article touched off a wildfire among people with PCD in their families, but she thought it was misleading. Hear her talk about the reality of how people may be harmed by the spread of poorly-worded research news. See our broader blog post at: http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=46051

This is the first of an occasional series profiling standout health care journalists. Christie Aschwanden is currently the lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight.com, but her work has appeared in many outlets. In her writing she keeps pursuing important basic questions, such as “How do we know what we know and how certain can we be about it?” This podcast is embedded in a broader blog post, found at: http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=44544.

HealthNewsReview.org is the only watchdog that regularly reviews health care news releases. The report card is poor. But this episode reveals how - more than just being inaccurate, imbalanced and incomplete - they can hurt people. We profile how the brain cancer glioblastoma hit a family, and how PR led to hope and then tears. A broader blog post, with pictures, is at: http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=44657. All of our news releases reviews are at: http://www.healthnewsreview.org/news-release-reviews/

What a year! In 2015, HealthNewsReview.org published nearly 600 articles. Record numbers of users came to our site. After nearly 10 years, our project has clearly become a leading voice to improve the public dialogue about health care and to help people think more critically about claims about interventions. In this episode, you’ll hear from 5 of our >45 contributors as they reflect on what they’ve learned. More detail in a broader blog post at http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=43121.

Jennifer Miller, PhD, is president of Bioethics International and an Assistant Professor at NYU School of Medicine. She and colleagues created a Good Pharma Scorecard to rank new drugs and their manufacturers on the transparency of clinical trial information for those new drugs. There were some disturbing findings from their initial analysis, which she explains in this podcast. See more detail in our broader blog post at http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=42604.

Brian Nosek, PhD, is director of the Center for Open Science and a psychology professor at the University of Virginia. That center’s mission is to increase openness, integrity and reproducibility of scientific research. I talked with him at the Stanford METRICS conference, “Improving Biomedical Research 2015.” This audio is wrapped into a broader blog post at http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=42582

The BMJ called him "the scourge of sloppy science." Dr. John Ioannidis has made a career out of doing science about science. Doing good science about bad science, about flawed science, about irreproducible science, about science that lacks transparency – to other scientists and certainly to the general public. Ioannidis' work contains important messages for journalists and for the general public about what they need to know about so many of the studies they hear about. This is the 1st of 3 podcasts recorded at the Stanford METRICS conference, "Improving Biomedical Research 2015." This audio is wrapped into a broader blog post at http://www.healthnewsreview.org/?p=42336.

Dr. Teppo Järvinen appears on the international "Too Much Medicine" stage with his concerns about the way osteoporosis - bone thinning - is diagnosed and treated. Järvinen is an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist in Helsinki, Finland. I interviewed him at the Preventing Overdiagnosis 2015 conference at the National Institutes of Health.

Do we really need another professional medical organization? The National Physicians Alliance obviously thought so 10 years ago. And now, on its 10th anniversary, NPA believes that it is needed more than ever. This is not your standard professional medical organization. Learn more about them in our interview with NPA executive director Jean Silver-Isenstadt, MD.

The tiny Society for Patient Centered Orthopedic Surgery has criticized the huge American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons over what should be on the orthopedic "Choosing Wisely" list. That's a campaign to have medical groups name at least 5 procedures that are commonly ordered but not always necessary. But the big group of surgeons - AAOS - didn't list any surgical procedures. We talked with Dr. James Rickert, president of the smaller Society for Patient Centered Orthopedic Surgery about its list - which had 5 surgical procedures on it. And we talked about conflicts of interest, health care journalism, and more.