Words not to use

[Guest guest]

These same words are used on the internet all of the time for when unethical and

unproven claims are being made...fraud and quakery!!

7 Words (and more) You Shouldn't Use in Medical News

Years ago, the publisher of this site wrote an essay with the above title.

http://www.healthnewsreview.org/ThingsYouShouldKnow/The7words.php

The words were:

a.. Cure

b.. Miracle

c.. Breakthrough

d.. Promising

e.. Dramatic

f.. Hope

g.. Victim

The list wasn't developed in isolation. Each of them was suggested by sick

people he had interviewed through the years. Each is a vague - sometimes

meaningless - term when used in a health care context. Granted, they are

exciting terms that might help sell papers or move a reporter's story onto page

one or into the first news block, but they can be dangerous terms that mislead

vulnerable people.

Journalists can also get too close to a source and even start to write like a

medical source talks. Medical jargon, while perhaps useful in the clinical

setting, can have unintended innuendo if it slips into news stories or into the

vernacular. Veteran journalist Judy Foreman has written about offensive words or

terms that slip into medical jargon. Some of her examples:

a.. incompetent cervix;

b.. the patient failed chemotherapy;

c.. the non-compliant patient.

If journalists parrot those terms when they hear them from physicians, editors

should swoop in and cut their copy.

News stories that cover clinical trials face a particular challenge with word

choice. Trials are done to see if new ideas work and if they're safe. So stories

shouldn't lead people that the evidence of efficacy and safety is already in

hand while the trials go on. " Therapeutic misconception " is a legal term

referring to a situation in which people who agree to enroll in clinical trials

believe there will be certain benefit from their participation in the

experiment. Indeed, the experiment is not a treatment or a therapy, and

journalists shouldn't refer to it as such until the evidence is in. In the same

way, it is troublesome to use the term " patients " to refer to people who agree

to enroll in trials. Patients are people who get treatments or therapies. In the

trial, these people are research subjects or participants (more polite terms

than guinea pig).

Journalists can spread a " therapeutic misconception " when they hype unproven

ideas. For example, almost 1,000 stories were reported about a drug named

pleconaril, which was being studied for the common cold. It was called a cure, a

breakthrough, a miracle, a wonder drug, a super drug. That was when trials were

under way. When the evidence was in, a Food and Drug Administration advisory

committee rejected the drug by a vote of 15-0. Trials ended. The 1,000 stories

can be put in the books as a waste of time. The drug never moved beyond

" experiment " to " therapy " despite the glowing news coverage.

The words used to describe health care and medical developments are important.

Check Nutrition at:

Nutrition.teach-nology.com

Ortiz, RD

nrord@...

Check these food sayings:

http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/ftsep06.shtml