Rapid Responses to:

VIEWS & REVIEWS: Paul Wilson, Mark Petticrew on behalf of the Medical Research Council’s Population Health Sciences Research Network knowledge transfer project team Why promote the findings of single research studies? BMJ 2008; 336: 722 [Full text]

Rapid Responses: Submit a response to this article

Rapid Responses published:

Do not promote the findings of single research studies.

Alexander SD Spiers   (2 April 2008)

Do not promote the findings of single research studies. 2 April 2008
Alexander SD Spiers, Professor of Medicine (retired). N/A. Send response to journal: Re: Do not promote the findings of single research studies.	Drs. Wilson and Petticrew rightly condemn the promotion of the findings of single research studies because they are likely to be biased, flawed, misinterpreted and misrepresented. In general, scientific journals are not prone to such reckless behaviour. The principal source of problems is the lay media, ever on the lookout for "newsworthy" medical publications. The promotion of findings that have not been confirmed can do much harm and cause very serious distress to patients and their relatives. Some years ago, it was announced on a nationwide radio news network that "a boy has just been cured of leukaemia". To a medical practitioner the statement is obviously ridiculous; years must elapse before a cure can be verified. But what of the patients with leukaemia and their relatives, tortured by the raising of false hopes? When a proper account was available, it was learnt that the boy had been treated with an early preparation of asparaginase and had achieved a complete remission. The statement about a cure came not from his physician, but from the nonmedical millionaire who had funded the research. The boy later died of recurrent leukaemia. More recently, there was a nationwide furore when the media gave publicity to a study that was thought to show a link between measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine and juvenile autism. Subsequent studies failed to confirm the initial finding, but the public had been needlessly alarmed and an unknown number of children went unvaccinated because their parents were frightened. Some publications are deliberately misleading for purposes of commercial gain. For example, a tabloid at a supermarket checkout had the front page headline "NEW MIRACLE DRUG FOR CANCER". There was sufficient material on the front page that the reader took the tabloid all the way to the cashier and purchased it. On a later page, only seen at home, a small paragraph stated that the drug had only been tested in rats and that clinical studies would not be possible for some years to come. This is not an isolated example of the cruel exploitation of the sick. Wilson and Petticrew have pointed out the responsibility of medical journals, research institutes and universities to ensure that single research studies are not unduly promoted. But what about an irresponsible press ? Competing interests: None declared