ArticleJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine2008
Deconstructing media coverage of trastuzumab (Herceptin): an analysis of national newspaper coverage.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- An empirical ethics study of the coherence of NICE technology appraisal policy and its implications for moral justification.BMC medical ethics · 2024Article
- How US newspapers view the UK's NHS: a study in international lesson-drawing.Social theory & health : STH · 2022Article
- It Takes Two to Tango: How the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in Israel Was Framed by the Health Ministry vs. the Television News.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- News coverage of drug development: implications for the conveyance of health information.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Depoliticisation, Resilience and the Herceptin Post-Code Lottery Crisis: Holding Back the Tide.British journal of politics & international relations · 2015Article
- Topics associated with conflict in print news coverage of the HPV vaccine during 2005 to 2009.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2014Article
- Bevacizumab for advanced breast cancer: hope, hype, and hundreds of headlines.The oncologist · 2013Article
- Evidence, ethics and inclusion: a broader base for NICE.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2011Article
- Demands for 'off-licence' access to trastuzumab (Herceptin): content analysis of UK newspaper articles.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2011Article
- The unbearable lightness of health science reporting: a week examining Italian print media.PloS one · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo explore and critically describe the content and main narratives of UK national daily newspaper coverage of trastuzumab (Herceptin).
designWe used the NewsBank database to search eight national daily newspapers, and their Sunday equivalents, retrospectively from 19 February 2006 back to the earliest mention of trastuzumab or Herceptin (19 May 1998). Setting UK national newspapers.
main outcome measuresTo be eligible for inclusion, articles had to contain at least three sentences about trastuzumab. Articles that focused on the financial performance of companies associated with the drug were excluded from the analysis. For each included article, we extracted bibliographic details and data, and independently rated the reporting slant towards trastuzumab and, where relevant, the reporting slant towards access to treatment.
resultsWe identified 361 articles that met the study inclusion criteria. The proprietary name of Herceptin was always used, with only eight articles mentioning the generic alternative. 294/361 included articles (81.5%) were rated as being positive towards trastuzumab, the remainder rated as neutral. Access to trastuzumab treatment was the main narrative running across included articles and reports of individual patients seeking treatment featured prominently throughout. In 208/361 of included articles (57%) the reporting slant towards access to trastuzumab treatment was rated as negative. 178/361 of included articles (49.3%) mentioned licensing, but rarely mentioned that licensing processes can only occur when the manufacturer applies for a licence. Only a minority of articles mentioned that the drug had to be licensed before it could be subject to the NICE approval process.
conclusionsNewspaper coverage of trastuzumab has been characterized by uncritical reporting. Journalists (and consumers) should be more questioning when confronted with information about new drugs and of the motives of those who seek to set the news agenda.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.