As I pointed out in a recent post, Time magazine's April 1 cover story, "How to Cure Cancer," is sure to raise false hopes among people grappling with cancer. It must also be devastating to those who...
Category: war on cancer
As I pointed out in a recent post, Time magazine's April 1 cover story, "How to Cure Cancer," is sure to raise false hopes among people grappling with cancer. It must also be devastating to those who have just lost someone to cancer, and who might now think that their lost loved one just missed being cured.
In a second post, I wrote that Time violated industry guidelines by running a full-page ad for M.D. Anderson in the middle of the story--a story that extravagantly praises the work of M.D. Anderson. The guidelines, devised by the American Society of Magazine Editors, specify that an ad should not run next to editorial copy that touts the same things touted in the ad. More importantly, I wrote, Time's ad placement created the impression that it wrote the story...
29Mar 2013
If you can't read it on the image, here is Time magazine's cover language in full:
"HOW TO CURE CANCER*
*Yes, it's now possible--thanks to new cancer dream teams that are delivering better...
If you can't read it on the image, here is Time magazine's cover language in full:
"HOW TO CURE CANCER*
*Yes, it's now possible--thanks to new cancer dream teams that are delivering better results faster."
Never mind cancer genes and clinical trials. All researchers needed was a new organizational chart.
The cover is dated April 1.
Time's cover language doesn't simply say that a cure is close; it says that a cure is now possible. Time describes this as a "conspiracy" to end cancer. It's a poor choice of words that could fuel the mistrust that many Americans already have of conventional cancer treatment and research.
The story, by Bill Saporito with reporting by Alice Park, begins with the unsurprising news that cancer is "hundreds...
15Jun 2012
A few things I was glad to read this week:
A nine-year-old blogger in Scotland...
A few things I was glad to read this week:
A nine-year-old blogger in Scotland who exposes the poor quality of school lunches gets shut down by local pols. From Maryn McKenna's Superbug. Thanks to David Dobbs for flagging.
Encouraging kids to help with cooking and cleaning makes them smarter later by reshaping their brains. By Geekmom Laura Grace Weldon. Thanks to Annie Murphy Paul for flagging.
Ed Yong's...
After...
After yesterday's post on hyped magazine cover language on cancer vaccines, it's nice to take note of a very good piece on cancer vaccines by the able Sharon Begley of Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
Begley begins in the usual way, with an anecdote about a patient who tried an experimental cancer vaccine in 2006 and is still alive five years later, a highly unlikely outcome. The vaccine's creator, Begley writes, "dares to envision a future in which vaccines 'control or even eliminate cancer.'”
Begley, writing in anticipation of the 40th...
Gina Kolata weighs in today in The New York Times with what seems to be the 10th piece in...
Gina Kolata weighs in today in The New York Times with what seems to be the 10th piece in her series on the war on cancer, which began in April. As I've noted here before, she has been relentlessly pessimistic about the outcome, despite a recent AP story--published in the Times--that reported that the cancer death rate has been declining for 20 years.
Now, in...
The New York Times, which has been running a series of front-page articles on...
The New York Times, which has been running a series of front-page articles on how we've lost the war on cancer, has an interesting little tidbit today--a few hundred words of an AP story crammed into the bottom left corner of page A24.
The story is about a report that predicts that by 2020, the death rate from colon cancer could be half what it was in 2000. But wait, as the TV pitchmen say, there's more! "The estimate was made in an annual report that shows that, over all, the cancer death rate in the United States is continuing to decline, as it has since the 1990s," the AP story says.
...
In one of the most successful health advocacy promotions of all time, breast cancer advocates have persuaded magazines, newspapers,...
In one of the most successful health advocacy promotions of all time, breast cancer advocates have persuaded magazines, newspapers, businesses, writers--us!--to do stories about breast cancer in October, breast cancer awareness month. And it's not quite October yet, but here they come.
The American Cancer Society has joined the party, releasing statistics showing that breast cancer death rate continues to drop 2 percent a year, a trend that began in 1990.
Pat Wechsler at Bloomberg noted the...
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