Insights

<p>In the heated debate over the new routine <a href="http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/USpstf/uspsbrca.htm">mammogram screening recommendations</a> from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, not enough coverage has focused on our perception of risk.</p> <p>It’s important context for all reporting on medical screening.</p> <p>Journalist Merrill Goozner, who blogs at <a href="http://www.gooznews.com/">GoozNews</a&gt;, has a great <a href="http://www.gooznews.com/node/3174">post</a&gt; on this topic, and on the costs of our misperception of risk. He writes:</p>

<p>Blogs, twitters and daily print help keep us abreast of breaking news. But there's nothing like an old-fashioned book to get inside a big sweeping tale. In the summer of 2007, when I was a fellow here, I had little more than a vision for a book that explored Big Pharma. Well, I also had some solid sources, a blockbuster drug, and a dramatic plot that spanned some 20 years. The hard part was finding a place to adequately tell the tale.

<p>Diabetic children are in jeopardy of dying in the classroom due to a severe shortage of California registered school nurses. There are 15,000 school districts in California and less than 50 percent of those districts have a registered nurse on campus. Current law in California requires only a reg

<p>Have you ever worked on a story where you knew that you were just one source away from a blockbuster? But you could never find that one great document that spelled out the connections or that one repentant insider willing to walk you through the corporate crime, government malfeasance or law enforcement deceit.</p>

<p>Most reporters never have the misfortune of being sued for libel. If they are, there are broad free speech protections in court precedent, especially in California, that make it unlikely a plaintiff will win, unless a reporter has been truly reckless.</p>

<p>This weekend, we ran a story that looked at Shasta County's high rates of hysterectomies and back surgeries, an important -- and touchy -- topic in our community given Redding <a href="http://www.redding.com/news/2009/oct/24/former-rmc-heart-surgeon-realyv… still recovering</a> from its years-long ordeal following FBI agents investigating allegations of unnecessary heart procedures performed at what was then Redding Medical Center </p>

<p><a href="http://www.healthjournalism.org/secondarypage-details.php?id=377">Felice Freyer</a>, veteran medical writer at the Providence Journal and <a href="http://www.healthjournalism.org/">Association of Health Care Journalists</a> board member, is surveying reporters about how state and local agencies are releasing, or refusing to release, basic demographic information (not names) about people who have died from H1N1/swine flu. </p>

<p><br />Some doctors crave distinction.</p><p>They carefully place their many diplomas and certificates on their wall to signal to patients that they are high achievers who can be trusted with surgical instruments and drugs that can cure or kill you, depending on how they are dosed.</p><p><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/perv_doctor_hit_with_ny_biggest_3… Sorodsky</a> craved the distinction of being a doctor. Instead, he now has the distinction of being thrown into jail with a massive bail: $33 million.</p>

<p>The change in U.S. mammogram screening guidelines is certainly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/health/17cancer.html?em">big news</a>, and it's not a one-day story. The obvious conflict is the disagreement between some major medical organizations and the <a href="http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstfab.htm&quot; title="Group’s Web site.">United States Preventive Services Task Force</a>, which is now recommending that women get their first mammogram at age 50, rather than 40 as previously recommended. </p>

<p>In<a href="/resources/lessons/covering-alternative-medicine"> a piece on this site,</a> journalist Jane Allen gives some useful advice about covering alternative medicine, but there are some gaps that are are hard for a non-medical professional to recognize (and frankly, for many medical professionals as well). She quite rightly urges skepticism, but when looking into ideologic and muddled topic of alternative medicine, skepticism needs to be turned up to "11".