CBS questions CDC’s H1N1 prevalence estimates
CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson reviewed state and federal data (collected through FOIA and other open records requests) and found that H1N1 may not be as prevalent as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated. The story turns on a July 24 memo announcing to states that the CDC would no longer count H1N1 cases and statistics from state tests taken before the memo that show that even tests of the most likely patients usually came back negative for H1N1.
The high level of misdiagnosis of “probable” or “presumed” H1N1 could result inaccurate reports of outbreaks as well as in people assuming they’ve survived H1N1 and are now immune when they’ve actually suffered something that may or may not even be influenza.
Related: The CDC talked a bit about reporting and data in its Oct. 20 news briefing. Read the rough transcript of that briefing, provided by the CDC. And, The Associated Press’ Mike Stobbe, an AHCJ board member, offers more explanation about the surveillance of H1N1.
Attkisson’s report:
Ashton: Physicians at forefront of medical media
Jennifer Ashton, M.D., the new medical correspondent for CBS News, asserts that “when you look at the people who are really at the forefront of medical media and the medical correspondents, they are physicians” in an interview for Columbia News Tonight, produced by the Columbia School of Journalism in New York.
Ashton, a practicing physician, also says that she thinks the things that make a good doctor are the same things that make a good medical correspondent. “You can do it well without the MD but I think again its like learning or knowing a foreign language and going to that country. It really puts you one step ahead of the game.”
Gary Schwitzer, of HealthNewsReview.org and the University of Minnesota, disagrees with Ashton.
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- AHCJ calls for better information from Joint Commission Web site
