ArticleCMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne2017
Conflicts of interest and expertise of independent commenters in news stories about medical research.
Article in CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Who can you trust? A review of free online sources of "trustworthy" information about treatment effects for patients and the public.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2019Pooled it
- Publication integrity: what is it, why does it matter, how it is safeguarded and how could we do better?Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand · 2025Review
- Article
- Media Coverage of the Benefits and Harms of Testing the Healthy: a protocol for a descriptive study.BMJ open · 2019Article
- Expert quotes and exaggeration in health news: a retrospective quantitative content analysis.Wellcome open research · 2019Article
- Development of mass media resources to improve the ability of parents of primary school children in Uganda to assess the trustworthiness of claims about the effects of treatments: a human-centred design approach.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2019Article
- Key Concepts for assessing claims about treatment effects and making well-informed treatment choices.F1000Research · 2018Article
- Improving coverage of medical research in a changing media environment.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMedia coverage of medical research influences the views and behaviours of clinicians, scientists and members of the public. We examined how frequently commenters in news stories about medical research have relevant expertise and have academic and financial conflicts, how often such conflicts are reported and whether there are associations between the conflicts and the disposition of the comments toward the findings of the source research.
methodsWe analyzed 104 independent comments in news stories on original clinical research published in high-impact medical journals from Jan. 1 to Mar. 31, 2013, and 21 related journal editorials. Main outcomes were prevalence of relevant academic and clinical expertise, prevalence and reporting of academic and financial conflicts of interest, and disposition of comments toward study findings.
resultsOnly 1 in 6 news stories included independent comments. Overall, 25% of commenters and 0% of editorialists had neither relevant academic nor clinical expertise (
interpretationIndependent commenters in new stories about medical research may lack relevant academic or clinical expertise. Academic or financial conflicts of interest were frequently present among independent commenters but infrequently reported, and were often associated with the disposition of comments about the source research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.