Last summer, Canada's McMaster's University, in collaboration with two publications, launched a project something like what we do here at the Tracker. Called "Science-ish", it's a weekly blog with a deceptively simple goal: to "check the latest health-related headlines against the evidence—and hold politicians, opinion leaders, and journalists to account."
A year later, I think we can say that the experiment worked. "Science-ish" is hosted at the magazine Mcleans and written by Julia Belluz, an associate editor at the Medical Post, who earned a masters in anthropology at the London School of Economics. And since last summer, its explored a fascinating range of issues in a smart and very readable way. And also one that raises issues important to science and medical writers in a genuinely international sense – the most recent post, for instance, was focused on lessons learned from nutrition deficiency treatments – and their coverage – in Ethiopia. The previous post, which also grew out of a conference in Africa, explored some of the frustrations raised by scientists about perceptions of their work.
I also admired a user-friendly post on searching the internet for health information, aimed at readers worried about their peculiar symptoms but useful to reporters as well. In other words, I'm fann-ish about this blog (sorry couldn't resist). And if you want to see why in greater detail, I've included a link to the archive here.
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