Reporter joins DNA risk-analysis study
VoiceofSanDiego.org’s Randy Dotinga took part in the growing trend of using genetic analysis to determine risk levels for certain diseases. Dotinga wrote one story after the test itself, and another after his results came back. Dotinga learned that he may be more inclined to pick up colon cancer and a little less likely to get Alzheimer’s. In the process, he also learned that nobody really knows just how useful these tests are.
That’s where Dotina and about 2,600 others come in. In exchange for deeply discounted genetic tests, Dotinga and other test subjects will fill out regular questionnaires for the next 20 years of their lives. The study aims to find out just what folks do with information gleaned from genetic testing, as well just how accurate the testing is.
To hear Dotinga tell it, genetic testing seems similar to regular cancer screenings, in that the benefit in early detection of problems may be outweighed by the cost of testing and the detection of harmless problems and the unnecessary procedures that may result.
“If you get back a report saying you are at risk for 10 things, you have 10 to-dos,” said (Jason Bobe, director of community for Harvard University’s Personal Genome Project). “You may spend a whole bunch of money on a diagnostic odyssey to see if you have these conditions. Along the way, we may save a lot of lives, but spend a lot of money on people getting unnecessary medical care.”
Watch Sebelius confirmation hearing
Sen. Edward Kennedy has opened the confirmation hearing for Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to become the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Opening comments and testimony (PDF) are available.
HuffPost starts investigative reporting fund
The Huffington Post is launching a fund that will support investigative reporting. The initial budget of $1.75 million is expected to pay for 10 staff journalists who will coordinate stories with freelancers.
Arianna Huffington (Photo: JD Lasica, socialmedia.biz (CC))
Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, said concern over the layoffs at newspapers hurting investigative journalism prompted the move. She hopes to hire laid-off journalists for the project.
Work that the journalists produce will be available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post, she said.
The first topic the journalists will be expected to delve into is the nation’s economy.
The Huffington Post skews liberal, but its founder promised that the work done by the investigative fund would be nonpartisan. The group would be discredited quickly if it puts out faulty information, said Nick Penniman, the fund’s executive director.
“We care about democracy, not Democrats,” he said.
Texas system fails the chronically homeless
In the first of a series of articles, Kim Horner of The Dallas Morning News looks at the struggle of helping the chronically homeless. The series will look at the costs of inadequate treatment for mental illness and addiction, as well as possible solutions. The project received support from The Carter Center.
Though chronic homelessness is a nationwide problem, Texas falls behind most states in providing care at psychiatric hospitals and mental health clinics. That lack of commitment results in overflowing facilities and poor follow-up care that can set up the most vulnerable patients for failure.
Horner reports that the system of psychiatric hospitals, drug and alcohol treatment centers, mental health clinics and housing programs isn’t working for most of the chronically homeless. “That failure not only perpetuates homelessness but ends up costing taxpayers millions for law enforcement, emergency care and other expenses that could be avoided.”
Chronically homeless people often do not follow through with their care and cannot properly care for themselves, leading them to return to treatment repeatedly. A hospital superintendent says failure to take medications is the top reason people are readmitted to his hospital.
The article does look at proposed solutions to the problem of homelessness. One answer - supported by experts nationwide - is to establish special apartments coupled with intensive mental health services to keep people stable.
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Urban Workshop keynoter Steve Lopez puts focus on mental health [Listen to Lopez' speech]
Jill Maddox, psychiatrist at the Center for Urban Community Services and the Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless, speaks about mental health issues in urban areas at the 2007 Urban Health Journalism Workshop.
2008 winners named in health journalism awards
AHCJ has named the latest winners of its annual awards. A reporter’s revelation of astonishing conflicts of interest by scientists advocating for early detection of lung cancer led to one of this year’s Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.
The awards also spotlighted such work as the exploration of a hidden world of illegal prescription drugs sold at swap meets, a narrative on a mechanic seeking to rebuild his life after an accident severed his arms, and a trip into the nightmarish world of a boy struggling with mental illness.
“It seems that every day, journalists and the public are inundated with stories about the death of our profession,” said Charles Ornstein, contest co-chair and a senior reporter at ProPublica. “Yet these award winners offer clear evidence that good health care journalism continues. Not only that, they show in a compelling way why health care must remain an integral beat in newsrooms across the country.”
The 2008 awards recognize the best health reporting in 11 categories covering print, broadcast and online media. In its fifth year, the contest received nearly 300 entries.
Winning stories are available online and AHCJ members can view questionnaires filled out by the winners.
Experts: Benefits of cancer screenings overinflated
In Reader’s Digest, Shannon Brownlee reports that while the American Cancer Society and federal government still push regular cancer screenings, “a growing group of scientific heretics - published in highly respected medical journals, working at some of the most august institutions - strongly believe that it’s time to rethink our whole approach.”
(Some researchers) say that yearly mammograms are not nearly as effective at reducing the risk of dying of breast cancer as most women think, and that mammography leads many women to get unnecessary treatment - especially those diagnosed with DCIS [ductal carcinoma in situ]. The problem is bigger than just mammography: They say the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test may do men more harm than good if they don’t already have symptoms of prostate cancer. And they have similarly grim things to say about other widely used cancer screening tests.
Experts that Brownlee interviewed say that screening catches tumors that would never cause major problems but not so effective at catching the more deadly, fast-growing kinds of cancer. Only a small percentage of all cancers that occur are fatal, and some cancers disappear on their own, Brownlee reports.
Brownlee also answers reader questions directly and has talked to AHCJ about her book, Overtreated.
Story documents end of life for woman and family
In “The Final Journey” in Cure magazine, contributing photographer Beatriz Terrazas and Cure editor-at-large Kathy LaTour document the final six months of 64-year-old Judy Abernathy’s life.
Abernathy invited CURE to join her family as they began moving toward the end of her life from metastatic lung cancer.
They follow Abernathy’s visits to a palliative care physician, report on her decision to stop a clinical trial so she could continue to be part of her family, describe the effect her illness has had on the family and document the steps she takes in hospice care.
“I have tried to stay on top of everything because when you go to sleep you don’t know if you are going to wake up,” Judy says lightly. It’s clear she is trying to begin the final discussions she wants to have with her children.
The Web site includes a eulogy written by Abernathy’s granddaughter - a journalism student - and features about hospice and palliative care and an article about controlling pain in cancer patients.
Dental credit cards raise questions, debt
Capital Public Radio’s Kelley Weiss reports that more patients are using “Dental credit cards,” lines of credit that carry high interest rates but may enable some patients to afford costly dental procedures. Plastic surgeons and veterinarians also use the cards. Despite the endorsements of dental organizations and availability at about 100,000 providers nationwide, growing numbers of patients are complaining about the cards and their issuer, CareCredit.
“It’s a new trend that we’re seeing,” said Elizabeth Landsberg, an attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “We didn’t have any of these cases in 2006. We saw some in 2007, and we saw a lot more in 2008.”
Landsberg says states are just starting to pay attention to this problem, and California’s ahead of the curve. That state is now tracking complaints, and this year saw nearly three dozen, she says. Most of these were from the poor, the elderly and non-English speakers.
Landsberg accuses CareCredit of predatory lending practices. She says people can get broadsided by a retroactive interest rate of as much as 30 percent for a late payment.
A CareCredit spokeswoman said the company did not engage in predatory lending practices, and that the majority of the company’s customers are happy.
Schwitzer: Reliance on journals hinders coverage
AHCJ member and past board member Gary Schwitzer is featured on the cover of Minnesota magazine, the bimonthly publication of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association.
In the magazine, Schwitzer, who is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota and publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, discusses the quality of health reporting and questions he says journalists are not answering:
We’re not asking tough questions: What’s the quality of evidence? Who’s going to have access to it? What’s it going to cost? Who’s your source? What are his or her conflicts of interest?
When asked about reporters who are doing a good job, Schwitzer cites AHCJ board member and Associated Press medical writer Carla Johnson for her evidence-based reporting and AHCJ member Scott Hensley, who was - until yesterday - co-editor of The Wall Street Journal Health Blog.
Denver’s ambulance system said to be ‘broken’
Tom Burke Arthur Kane and Tony Kovaleski of KMGH-Denver, used the example of the 33 minutes it took for ambulances to reach a major December airline crash to investigate flaws in the city’s emergency response system.
It took four minutes until the first ambulance was dispatched from Interstate 70 and Colorado Boulevard, which is 19 miles away. That ambulance was dispatched Code 9 — a non-emergency designation where the paramedics drive at normal speeds without turning on lights or sirens.
“There’s no reason that I can conceive of that a response to a confirmed crash of a commercial airliner, that the initial response would be non-emergency for transport ambulances,” said Bob Petre, a long-time Denver Health paramedic, who is president of the union. “It’s unbelievable.”
Sideras, who, along with Lindsey, reviewed documents obtained by the CALL7 investigators, said Denver’s Ambulance system is “broken.”
“There was a true failure in the system,” Sideras said.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper vowed the city’s sluggish response would not be repeated.
“When you’ve got a red alert, you still need to send the resources immediately that that situation is going to need,” Hickenlooper said. “It’s unacceptable. You can’t have from the moment the crash happens, an ambulance there in 33 minutes. That will never happen again.”
The Poynter Insitute’s Al Tompkins interviewed Kovaleski about the project. Kovaleski discussed the impetus for the story.
We have known about the problems inside the dispatch center and with Denver Health for nearly a year. Since last May, we have aired almost a dozen stories exposing problems with ambulance response times in Denver. Following December’s plane crash, it was a logical request to see how the ambulance system worked on the night of a mass casualty incident.
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Health Journalism 2010, AHCJ's annual conference, features a world-class program with story ideas, sources, stronger reporting skills, chances to meet newsmakers and network with other journalists.
- Health and education: Covering these intersecting beats
- Reporting on the business of health care
- Health reporting resources for journalists on state and local government beats
- Shortened Lives: How location, lifestyle affect health
- Covering a complex story for the long haul
- Aging in the 21st Century: Presentations and tip sheets
- AHCJ calls for better information from Joint Commission Web site
