Debate over M.D. reporters in Haiti continues
Discussion and debate continues about the ethics of reporters also serving as doctors in Haiti. [Earlier post]
The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi spoke to some network officials - including Paul Friedman, executive vice president of CBS News, who “says that competitive issues have factored in boosting [Dr. Jennifer] Ashton’s role since [CNN's Dr. Sanjay] Gupta became a star.”
In Baltimore, The Sun’s Kelly Brewington posted the question of whether doctors can also be reporters to readers in that paper’s “Picture of Health” blog.. Curtis Brainerd, on the Columbia Journalism Review’s Web site, wrote about the concerns being raised over the dual roles doctor/reporters are serving in.
Last week, the Society of Professional Journalists released a statement cautioning journalists to not become part of the story. When some people, including new media professor and blogger Jeff Jarvis, interpreted that to mean reporter/doctors should not treat patients, the discussion became more heated. Blogger Tyler Dukes took on Jarvis’ denigration of SPJ’s statement, saying that Jarvis “chose to argue his points with hyperbole and distortion.”
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation discussed the issue on the Jan. 21 edition of its “As it Happens” show. [Listen]
On Jan. 27, National Public Radio’s media correspondent David Folkenflik appeared on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth and talked about how much of a role should a reporter perform in the midst of a story.
Folkenflik, who has spoken to ABC’s Dr. Richard Besser and NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman, says, “The real question is ‘Is it required for them to tell those stories through their own experiences? Are they somehow diverting attention from those who might need it most by focusing their camera and their aid on these, these people and are they in some ways subtley changing the nature of outcomes there?”
Folkenflik says, “Nobody’s saying these people shouldn’t help” but that “The question is ‘Is there any need to keep the camera rolling while they do it?’ I think that’s fundamentally the issue.”
NPR’s On the Media delved into the topic on Jan. 22, with Neal Shapiro, president of WNET Public Television in New York and former president of NBC News; AHCJ member Gary Schwitzer, of the University of Minnesota and publisher of Health News Review; Bob Steele, a journalism ethicist at DePaul University and member of the Poynter Institute’s faculty; and Dr. Bob Arnot, former chief medical correspondent for NBC News.
Arnot, who has intervened medically while on assignment - without the cameras rolling - pinpointed some of the concerns of performing medical procedures on camera:
DR. BOB ARNOT: Look, the real risk is here that your producer calls up and says, hey we just saw the other network’s doctor deliver a baby, could you do an amputation. There’s a real risk that doctors could be pushed into things they shouldn’t be doing because of the pressure of the suits or the producers, to just get better ratings.
BOB GARFIELD: Things they shouldn’t do, he says, such as treating somebody in the street who can just as easily and more safely be attended to at a clinic or hospital, and such as exploiting the pain of an earthquake victim, not to mention the emotions of the audience, for three minutes of drama, genuine or otherwise.
DR. BOB ARNOT: Absolutely, I mean, look-it. If this happened on the streets of New York, do you think you could do that with the current HIPAA regulations? So, sure, you’re potentially exploiting the patient, and you are becoming more of a showman than you are a medical doctor out there.
Ifill digs into health reform lobbying money
PBS Newshour’s Gwen Ifill filed a report on the staggering sums of money spent on lobbying by various industries whose balance sheets are riding on the outcome of health care reform.
She leads with big numbers from the Center for Responsive Politics, including $400 million from the health care sector and $120 million from insurers in the first nine months of 2009 alone. To drive those numbers home, the Center’s Dave Levinthal even called it one of the “biggest lobbying efforts ever on a single piece of legislation that the United States has ever seen.”
According to Levinthal, health reform’s unique combination of a massive industry and a long, drawn-out process has created a sort of perfect storm for lobbyists. He added that, while strides have been made since the Abramoff days, lobbyists still have a long way to go in the transparency department. An analysis released by the center finds that “the senators who opposed the health insurance reform bill passed on Christmas Eve received an average of nearly 30 percent more political donations from political action committees and individual employees of health and health insurance-related groups and companies since 1989.”
Report focuses on researchers’ conflicts of interest
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Government, Studies
There are vulnerabilities in how financial conflicts of interest are handled by NIH-funded researchers, according to a report (PDF, 46 pages) released today by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General. Among the findings:
- 90 percent of the grantee institutions rely solely on the researchers’ discretion to determine which financial interests are required to be reported
- because nearly half of the grantee institutions do not require researchers to provide specific amounts of equity or compensation on their financial disclosure forms, specific financial interests of NIH-funded researchers are often unknown
- grantee institutions do not routinely verify the information submitted by researchers about their financial interests
- some grantee institutions lack documentation to support their oversight of financial conflicts of interest
- the majority of grantee institutions do not have policies and procedures that address subgrantee compliance with federal regulations regarding financial conflicts of interest
- conflicts were not reported by grantee institutions to NIH in a consistent format
- grantee institutions are not required to report to NIH any financial interests that they have with outside companies
The inspector general’s review focused on the 41 grantee institutions that submitted financial conflict-of-interest reports to NIH in fiscal year 2006.
The review found that the most common financial conflict of interest is equity ownership (including stock and stock options) in companies in which the researchers’ financial interests could significantly affect the grant research.
Other financial conflicts of interest among researchers involved inventing technology, consulting, or holding positions with outside companies. To manage financial conflicts of interest, grantee institutions often require researchers to disclose conflicts in research publications; however, grantee institutions rarely reduce or eliminate financial conflicts of interest.
The report includes a number of recommendations – that it has previously recommended – to improve the reporting of financial conflicts of interest.
Covering Health: First year’s most popular posts
With a year of posts behind us, we thought it would be a good time to look back and see what posts proved to be the most popular – or at least the most read:
- Lewin group linked to private insurers
- Autism news raises question: When is an embargo not an embargo?
- Hensley joins NPR’s expanding health team
- Report: $25,000 buys access to Post’s health reporters
- CDC monitors H1N1 swine flu-human reassortment
- Oransky to take helm at Reuters Health
- Top N.Y. neurosurgeons suspended, sued
- Pharma industry still finding its way in social media
- Hospital says it gives content to short-staffed media
- Kuklo scandal spotlights DoD/Medtronic ties
- ‘Playing through’ concussions is damaging
- Where to find the facts on health care reform
- CBS questions CDC’s H1N1 prevalence estimates
- VA officials seize reporter’s audio recording
- Oprah’s health advice needs a shot in the arm
- Autism and vaccines: A failure to communicate
- Will pharmacists play a role in H1N1 vaccinations?
- Covering Obama’s stance on stem cell research
- Appleby to report for Kaiser Health News
- Prevention vs. treatment in global health
- FDA staff calls for end to corruption, wrongdoing
- Mentally ill patients, elderly mix in nursing homes
- Three health-care issues Obama, Congress will face
- Jost discusses consumer-driven health plans
- Tim Tebow’s head fuels concussion debate
Hospital says it gives content to short-staffed media
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Health journalism, Health policy, Hospitals
Lindsey Miller of Ragan Communications Inc., a publisher of corporate communications, writes that Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has found a way to “spread its message“ – by providing content to the area’s short-staffed television stations. [Update: The link to that article has since been moved behind a pay wall.]
The hospital’s director of marketing communications says she has flipped the problem of reduced local medical reporting due to layoffs to her advantage by providing features and experts to help fill the gap, particularly at TV stations such as Boston’s Fox affiliate.
- For example, Beth Israel’s hand surgery numbers had been down lately, so [director of marketing Rhonda] Mann pitched a four- to five-minute segment on carpal tunnel syndrome, making one of the hospital’s surgeon available to talk about the condition. Now, every month or so, the station brings in someone from Beth Israel to present common health tips. Doing so fills time and gives anchors a topic to promote for the next day.
Mann says stations are looking for health content “because a lot of the first people laid off covered a beat, health in particular. She provides examples of how she helps producers:
- To fill that void, Mann pitches health topics of general interest — such as back pain, headaches, heartburn — and boils them down into five easy-to-remember tips or facts. She also makes it easy for the station by offering to do the work.
A quick search of the WFXT-Boston Web site found a number of stories featuring the hospital’s doctors:
AHCJ left phone and e-mail messages with the station yesterday in an attempt to get its comments. If we hear from the station, we will update this post.
According to the article, Mann also provides health content, from hospital publications, to TuBoston, described as “the largest Spanish newspaper in New England.”
AHCJ and the Society of Professional Journalists have urged news outlets to avoid arrangements with hospitals that improperly influence health coverage, saying unethical partnerships interfere with independent news coverage of health care. That includes broadcasting news or interviews prepared by hospitals.
Doctor calls for principles in health reporting
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Health journalism
Nortin Hadler, M.D., in an opinion piece for ABC News, writes about his worries for health journalism. Hadler, who is on the advisory board for the health and medical journalism program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says that health journalism is threatened more than other reporting specialties by the financial pressures the media industry is experiencing.
He points out that health reporting is a specialty in journalism and calls for appropriately trained, responsible health journalists. He points to AHCJ’s statement of principles and says living up to them is a “challenge that is met unevenly.”
Hadler expresses concern “about the decimation of the ranks of health journalists. I understand the appeal of ‘press releases’ and the greater appeal of such that accumulate on Web sites; convenience can unburden the journalists assigned to cover more than is possible and cost-effectiveness can unburden the publisher whose cash flow is so tenuous.”
AIDS advocates: Obama needs to use leverage
Filed under: Government, Health care reform, Health policy, Hot Health Headline, Pharmaceuticals, Public health
The Chicago Tribune’s Tom Hamburger reports that several global health advocacy organizations, including Doctors without Borders and OxFam International, have criticized the Obama administration for not helping to remove Bush-era impediments (primarily regarding pharmaceutical patent enforcement) to cheaper drugs overseas. Advocates claim officials are unwilling to confront major pharmaceutical companies at a time when their cooperation is needed in negotiations surrounding health care reform. For their part, administration officials point out that language in their reports has softened somewhat from that of the previous administration.
Parikh defends Emanuel of ‘death panel’ fame
Filed under: Government, Health care reform, Health policy, Hot Health Headline
Pediatrician and blogger Rahul Parikh published an defense of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an Obama adviser and the right wing’s latest target, on Salon.com. Opponents have used a few out-of-context quotes from Emanuel’s articles on medical ethics to accuse him of providing justification for so-called “death panels” that folks like Sarah Palin are alleging will make pronouncements on who does and doesn’t deserve health care (Salon’s Alex Koppelman rounds up some of the most popular arguments here).
Parikh paints a picture of Emanuel, whose brother Rahm has also received a fair amount of right-wing vitriol, as an uncompromisingly realistic but fundamentally moral and helpful man who has helped doctors trapped in the daily grind to better understand the bigger moral picture that comes with their particular calling.
Related
Wall Street Journal health blogger Jacob Goldstein points out a WSJ editorial that Emanuel wrote in opposition to euthanasia. In it, Emanuel argues that patients choose assisted suicide based more on mental than physical illness.
For the vast majority of dying patients, Emanuel wrote, “legalizing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide would be of no benefit. To the contrary, it would be a way of avoiding the complex and arduous efforts required of doctors and other health-care providers to ensure that dying patients receive humane, dignified care.”
SF Bay Area station runs sponsored health ‘news’
Michael Mechanic, a senior editor at Mother Jones, blogs about airtime for sale at KRON-San Francisco, a television station that calls itself “the Bay Area’s News Station.” (The section of Mechanic’s post about television segments for sale is about a third of the way through the blog post, starting with “It’s not just the newspapers, of course.”)
KRON, which used to be an NBC affiliate but is now independent, features segments designed to look like news stories but are actually paid for by sponsors. One such segment is called “Medical Mondays:”
The 24-minute segment is preceded by a seven-second disclaimer noting that the following program was paid for by Seton Medical Center. If you happened to tune it in after eight seconds, you’d be none the wiser.
Mechanic describes the segments as looking and feeling like real news, with a ticker and chirons similar to those on regular newscasts.
KRON also runs a show called “Morning News” featuring paid spots with experts, including features called “Eye on Health” and “Weight Solutions.” Mechanic says the financial relationships are not always disclosed and, when they are, they are “mostly couched in the vague language of sponsorship and partnership.”
AHCJ and the Society of Professional Journalists have taken a stand against such unhealthy alliances between news outlets and hospitals.
NIH rules more stem cells eligible for funding
Right off the bat let’s just note that the promised cures from stem cells have been slow in coming.
Science is hard. But many researchers trying to harness embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to produce any kind of cell in the human body, say restrictions on the cells that qualify for federal funding have made the work even harder. (AHCJ article - Covering stem cells: Background on science, politics and global competition)
When stem cells like these human embryonic stem cells divide, each new cell has the potential to remain a stem cell or become a cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell or a red blood cell. Photo: National Institutes of HealthEarlier this year the Obama administration rolled back limits from the Bush era that restricted federal funding to only a few cell lines. But it still hasn’t been clear which stem cells are OK and which are verboten.
The National Institutes of Health has waded in with clarifying guidelines that take effect today. The upshot: if the old cell lines were created ethically, then they should be good to go. The main issue is whether researchers got the appropriate consent of donors.
Next up, an NIH committee will pass judgment on existing cells and produce a Web site itemizing the ones that are legit.
“Every institution shouldn’t have to rediscover which cell lines are eligible for NIH funding, so having a registry is very practical,” George Q. Daley, a stem-cell researcher at Children’s Hospital Boston told The New York Times.
Covering stem cells: Background on science, politics and global competition
Tip Sheet: Stem cell research in California
Intense competition in stem cell research: Mark Johnson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes a three-part series detailing the discovery of how to create embryonic stem cells out of normal cells. The online package includes a time-lapse video of an embryo’s first five days of development and links to a discussion about the ethics of stem cell research.
Obama order expected to increase speed, efficiency of stem cell research
National Center for Biotechnology Information
Medical Advances: Treatments, Cures, Possibilities: Presentations from this Knight Center for Specialized Journalism seminar are available.
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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
