An independent hype index grading cancer press releases and news stories
Rate every cancer breakthrough story and press release for spin, using set criteria, and publish the scores so journalists, institutions and readers can see who overstates.
Spin in abstracts and press releases is documented and propagates into news coverage and patient expectations; HealthNewsReview.org showed independent grading is feasible before it closed for lack of funding. The proposal is a sustainably funded service that grades press releases from journals, institutions and companies on a published rubric (absolute versus relative numbers, harms, cost, stage of evidence, independent comment), publishes an institution-level hype index, and provides a plain-language re-statement of each finding.
- Misinformation and unproven therapies · Patients are sold unproven treatments and frightened away from proven ones.
- Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains · The system pays the same for a drug that adds two months as for a cure, so companies race to copy rather than to cure.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- Key paperDoll and Hill 1950: the case-control study that tied smoking to lung cancer
Shares Misinformation and unproven therapies, Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains.
- Key paperAlcohol caused an estimated 741,000 cancers worldwide in 2020
Shares Misinformation and unproven therapies, Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains.