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A number of farmers markets have begun to offer matching incentive programs as a way to increase access to fresh foods for low-income families and increase sales among vendors. However, research evaluating the implementation of these programs is limited. This study employed a qualitative approach, interviewing vendors (n=19) selling at four farmers markets in Maryland to understand the barriers and facilitators to implementing the Maryland Market Money program. Overall, ven­dors reported positive attitudes toward the incen­tive program. Interviewed vendors identified key facilitators such as ease of implementation and positive social and economic impact of the pro­gram for participants and themselves. Vendors also discussed barriers, which included a lack of under­standing among customers about how the program operated, poor program promotion, and lack of educational materials. Some vendors described negative experiences with customers and expressed stigmatizing views toward customers. Given that vendors are key stakeholders in program imple­mentation, as incentive programs continue to expand, it is important to take into account their views and concerns to create successful programs. See the press release for this article.

The fairness of ethical decisions related to the allocation of medical resources within the COVID-19 pandemic The Serbian Resuscitation Council discussed, considered, and adopted based on the National Course Director leaders opinion consensus in the field of resuscitation medicine about the basic principles of resource allocations, related to the application of resuscitation procedures and care of patients during the pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic around the world has brought a lot of changes within all segments of life, we all are faced to everyday challenges, including ethics in medicine, which is a very sensitive area due to specifics that are unique and different in each country individually, with strong cultural, economic, religious, medical, legal, and other diversities. The challenges are enormous, given by the current lack of a specific therapy, by the limited resources available for diagnosis, intervention, and preventive measures. The pandemic also brought the need to create conditions for the application of "unusual" requirements, measures, and procedures of the healthcare system and medical care, which entails a certain reorganization of medical interventions and care systems, including mandatory personal protection measures, adherence to adequate social distance, and all hygienic procedures. General ethical principles, such as maximum benefit and equality of treatment, while giving priority to those with the most severe conditions, have created the need to create ethical recommendations related to the allocation of medical resources in the COVID-19 pandemic and Eziekel et al. published six principles related to the above in terms of maximizing benefits, giving an advantage to healthcare professionals, triage outside the framework of the "first arrival" basis, responding to findings, recognizing participation in research, and applying the same principles to COVID-19 and in non-COVID-19 patients. A fair allocation of these ethical values and principles requires adaptable ethical frameworks depending on the resources available and the organizational structure of the healthcare system.

The Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine has shown 100% efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 in 12 to 15 year olds in the preliminary results of a phase III trial. Pfizer announced the results in a press release, although full details have yet to be published. It said that it would now submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency as it requests expanded marketing authorisation. “We plan to submit these data to the FDA as a proposed amendment to our emergency use authorisation in the coming weeks and to other regulators around the world, with the hope of starting …

The urgent need to develop effective therapeutics and disseminate information from clinical studies has led to data from clinical trials being made available by alternate methods prior to peer-reviewed publication, including press releases, social media and pre-print papers. While this allows clinicians more open access to these data, a trust has to be placed with the investigators releasing these data without the availability of scientifically rigorous peer review. The examples of results from trials studying dexamethasone and hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 have had contrasting outcomes, including the potential for significant numbers of lives saved with the early release of results from the RECOVERY trial studying dexamethasone contrasting with unsubstantiated data being presented from trials studying hydroxychloroquine. Clinicians and researchers must maintain a healthy scepticism when reviewing results prior to peer-reviewed publication, but also consider when these opportunities may allow for early implementation of potentially lifesaving interventions for people infected with COVID-19.

A vaccine candidate developed by Pfizer and BioNTech may be more than 90% effective in preventing covid-19 in participants without prior infection, the first interim analysis of the phase III trial shows. The research team evaluated the results after 94 cases of covid-19 had been confirmed. The study began in July and has so far enrolled nearly 44 000 participants, just under 39 000 of whom have received a second dose of the mRNA vaccine candidate (as of 8 November). The team’s announcement said, “The case split between vaccinated individuals and those who received the placebo indicates a vaccine efficacy rate above 90%, at seven days after the second dose. This means that protection is achieved 28 days after the initiation of the vaccination, which consists of a two-dose schedule.” However, the results, which are the first from any phase III trial of a covid-19 vaccine, have been shared only by press release and have not yet been published or …

Knowledge dissemination during COVID19 has been notable for the rise of pre-prints and publication by press release, favoring speed over accuracy. We stress the importance of journals in this landscape and highlight the value of editorial judgment and peer review.

25 July 2021 will mark the second anniversary1 of the e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI) outbreak.2 The concerns raised and news media attention focused on EVALI created a fertile environment for the tobacco industry to promote their e-cigarette alternatives,1 3 but this has not been studied. One such product is Philip Morris International’s (PMI) heated tobacco product: ‘IQOS’.4 5 To assess how PMI promoted IQOS in the news during EVALI, we used ‘Tobacco Watcher’ (www.tobaccowatcher.org), a fully automated and publicly available tobacco media analysis engine that warehouses news from more than 500 000+ sources. We plotted trends in news stories mentioning ‘IQOS’ finding the largest number of stories mentioning IQOS occurred on 25 September 2019, with 261 articles, more than double the next highest day previously recorded. While investigating this anomaly we discovered an official PMI press release entitled ‘Lung illnesses associated with use of vaping products in the US’ was published the same day.6 In the release (see online supplemental material), PMI recounted the EVALI outbreak beginning: ‘Skepticism and fear around vaping has emerged following the cases of respiratory illness and deaths in the US associated with the use of e-cigarettes.’ PMI then contrasted this against their IQOS heated tobacco product, writing ‘on April 30 2019, the FDA authorized IQOS for sale in the US, finding that marketing of the product would be ‘appropriate for the protection of public health’’ (quotes used in the original release).### Supplementary data [tobaccocontrol-2021-056661supp001.pdf] According to Tobacco Watcher, the original PMI press release was republished (including …

Background: As sleep position and environment are known to contribute to the risk for infant death, and media images have been shown to sway healthcare decision-making, in 2016 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated their sleep guidelines to explicitly call for the media to refrain from depicting infants in unsafe sleeping positions/environments.Objective: We aimed to assess whether the images accompanying the news coverage of the press release summarizing these new safe sleep guidelines were consistent with the recommendations.Method: We searched the Google News™ archives, the largest compilation of searchable news coverage in the world, in the month after the AAP issued its press release. Two coders independently analyzed all pictures of sleeping infants accompanying the news reports for adherence to the guidelines regarding sleep position/environment.Results: We identified 44 news articles with 39 accompanying images showing a sleep environment with or without an infant. The majority ...

Kratom use as a herbal supplement is on the rise in the United States, with reported medical outcomes and lethal effects suggesting a public health threat. Even though the Drug Enforcement Administration has included kratom on its drugs of concern list and the FDA has published a press release to identify it as an opioid with a potential for abuse, its therapeutic and side effects are still not well defined in the literature. Here, we present a case of a 32-year-old man with a history of kratom use who became acutely ill with a brief prodromal illness, followed by jaundice and elevated liver enzymes showing a cholestatic picture, and his successful treatment. In this case, we emphasize the need for awareness of kratom exposure as a key contributor in the expansion of the opioid crisis, with therapeutic benefits earned at the expense of potentially lethal side effects.

Over the past 5 years, addition of bevacizumab to combination chemotherapy for advanced, recurrent, and persistent cervical cancer has offered prolonged overall and progression-free survival. Since the original press release announcing the survival benefits of this antiangiogenesis therapy, there has been further study of bevacizumab related to quality of life, combination with other agents, use of imaging to evaluate likelihood of response, and development of biosimilars. This review summarizes publications related to bevacizumab use in advanced, recurrent, and persistent cervical cancer over the past 5 years since initial proof of concept of antiangiogenesis therapy and the initial dissemination of information regarding survival benefits of bevacizumab.

This study investigates an association between press release and news media response on tobacco-related issues in South Korea. We retrieved 231 tobacco-related newspaper articles from all major dailies throughout the year 2005. In total, 37 press releases on tobacco-related issues and policies published by the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare were obtained from the Ministry website. Content analysis and appropriate statistical tests were performed. Results from our content analysis suggest that producing more press releases on tobacco-related issues may result in a greater volume of newspaper articles, and that a press release on a new topical issue may effect more intense media coverage. Findings also show that when Korean newspaper articles overall held less favorable views of tobacco-related policies and programs in 2005, taxation was the most frequent theme with a non-positive opinion. Findings from our multivariate logistic regression models imply that a newspaper article with a source press release—especially about a new topical issue—is more likely than an article without a source press release to discuss tobacco-related issues more positively. Our findings suggest that a press release may serve as an effective media strategy for reaching out to the public by disseminating tobacco-control efforts and policies.

Background New metrics have been developed to assess the impact of research and provide an indication of online media attention and data dissemination. We aimed to describe online media attention of articles evaluating cancer treatments and identify the factors associated with high online media attention. Methods We systematically searched MEDLINE via PubMed on March 1, 2015 for articles published during the first 6 months of 2014 in oncology and medical journals with a diverse range of impact factors, from 3.9 to 54.4, and selected a sample of articles evaluating a cancer treatment regardless of study design. Altmetric Explorer was used to identify online media attention of selected articles. The primary outcome was media attention an article received online as measured by Altmetric score (i.e., number of mentions in online news outlets, science blogs and social media). Regression analysis was performed to investigate the factors associated with high media attention, and regression coefficients represent the logarithm of ratio of mean (RoM) values of Altmetric score per unit change in the covariate. Results Among 792 articles, 218 (27.5%) received no online media attention (Altmetric score = 0). The median [Q1–Q3] Altmetric score was 2.0 [0.0–8.0], range 0.0–428.0. On multivariate analysis, factors associated with high Altmetric score were presence of a press release (RoM = 10.14, 95%CI [4.91–20.96]), open access to the article (RoM = 1.48, 95%CI [1.02–2.16]), and journal impact factor (RoM = 1.10, 95%CI [1.07–1.12]. As compared with observational studies, systematic reviews were not associated with high Altmetric score (RoM = 1.46, 95%CI [0.74–2.86]; P = 0.27), nor were RCTs (RoM = 0.65, 95%CI [0.41–1.02]; P = 0.059) and phase I/II non-RCTs (RoM = 0.58, 95%CI [0.33–1.05]; P = 0.07). The articles with abstract conclusions favouring study treatments were not associated with high Altmetric score (RoM = 0.97, 95%CI [0.60–1.58]; P = 0.91). Conclusions Most important factors associated with high online media attention were the presence of a press release and the journal impact factor. There was no evidence that study design with high level of evidence and type of abstract conclusion were associated with high online media attention. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s41073-017-0033-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: Exaggerations in health news were previously found to strongly associate with similar exaggerations in press releases. Moreover such exaggerations did not appear to attract more news. Here we assess whether press release practice changed after these reported findings; simply drawing attention to the issue may be insufficient for practical change, given the challenges of media environments. Methods: We assessed whether rates of causal over-statement in press releases based on correlational data were lower following a seminal paper on the topic, compared to an equivalent baseline period in the preceding year. Results: We found that over-statements in press releases reduced from 28% (95% confidence interval = 16% to 45%) in 2014 to 13% (95% confidence interval = 6% to 25%) in 2015. A corresponding numerical reduction in exaggerations in news was not significant. The association between over-statements in news and press releases remained strong. Conclusions: Press release over-statements were less frequent following publication of Sumner et al. (2014), indicating that press release practice is malleable. However, this is correlational evidence and the reduction may be due to other factors.

Press releases have an increasingly strong influence on media coverage of health research; however, they have been found to contain seriously exaggerated claims that can misinform the public and undermine public trust in science. In this study we propose an NLP approach to identify exaggerated causal claims made in health press releases that report on observational studies, which are designed to establish correlational findings, but are often exaggerated as causal. We developed a new corpus and trained models that can identify causal claims in the main statements in a press release. By comparing the claims made in a press release with the corresponding claims in the original research paper, we found that 22% of press releases made exaggerated causal claims from correlational findings in observational studies. Furthermore, universities exaggerated more often than journal publishers by a ratio of 1.5 to 1. Encouragingly, the exaggeration rate has slightly decreased over the past 10 years, despite the increase of the total number of press releases. More research is needed to understand the cause of the decreasing pattern.

Background: Exaggerations in health news were previously found to strongly associate with similar exaggerations in press releases. Moreover, such press release exaggerations did not appear to attract more news. Methods: Here we tested the replicability of these findings in a new cohort of news and press releases based on research in UK universities in 2014 and 2015. Press releases and news were compared to their associated peer-reviewed articles to define exaggeration in advice, causal claims and human inference from non-human studies. Results: We found that the association between news and press releases did not replicate for advice exaggeration, while this association did replicate for causal claims and human inference from non-human studies. There was no evidence for higher news uptake for exaggerated press releases, consistent with previous results. Base exaggeration rates were lower for human inference from non-human studies, possibly reflecting the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research in the UK. Conclusions: Overall, the picture remains that the strength of news statements is normally associated with the strength of press release statements, and without evidence that exaggerated statements get significantly more news.

Background This research is an investigation into the role of expert quotes in health news, specifically whether news articles containing a quote from an independent expert are less often exaggerated than articles without such a quote. Methods Retrospective quantitative content analysis of journal articles, press releases, and associated news articles was performed. The investigated sample are press releases on peer-reviewed health research and the associated research articles and news stories. Our sample consisted of 462 press releases and 668 news articles from the UK (2011) and 129 press releases and 185 news articles from The Netherlands (2015). We hand-coded all journal articles, press releases and news articles for correlational claims, using a well-tested codebook. The main outcome measures are types of sources that were quoted and exaggeration of correlational claims. We used counts, 2x2 tables and odds ratios to assess the relationship between presence of quotes and exaggeration of the causal claim. Results Overall, 99.1% of the UK press releases and 84.5% of the Dutch press releases contain at least one quote. For the associated news articles these percentages are: 88.6% in the UK and 69.7% in the Netherlands. Authors of the study are most often quoted and only 7.5% of UK and 7.0% of Dutch news articles contained a new quote by an expert source, i.e. one not provided by the press release. The relative odds that an article without an external expert quote contains an exaggeration of causality is 2.6. Conclusions The number of articles containing a quote from an independent expert is low, but articles that cite an external expert do contain less exaggeration.

India is experiencing a sharp spike in covid-19 cases after months of numbers dropping. The rise comes as India celebrates festivals like Holi, religious functions like the Kumbh Mela, and with five states currently involved in elections. The country’s pandemic curve had been flattening by January and February this year but has taken a sharp upward turn since March. On 27 March, India’s confirmed active cases on the day were 62 632, the highest seen since October 2020. Globally, India has had the third highest number of confirmed cases and deaths from covid-19 after Brazil and the US. As of 29 March, India had 12 million cases and 162 000 deaths from the disease.1 Last week, the Indian government acknowledged a “surge in covid-19 cases” and asked states to focus on “stringent containment and public health measures” including increasing testing, tracing, and vaccination. A press release from the government2 put the onus for the second wave of infections on “the laxity among everyone.” The central government has asked state governments to take this surge …

Officials from the monitoring board overseeing AstraZeneca’s latest covid-19 vaccine trial have expressed concern that data released by the company this week may have been out of date and “provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.” AstraZeneca issued an interim analysis of its phase III trial carried out in the US, Chile, and Peru in a press release on 22 March.1 This showed that the vaccine was 79% effective at preventing symptomatic covid-19 and 100% effective at preventing severe disease and admission to hospital, though the results have yet to be formally peer reviewed. Vaccine efficacy was consistent across all ethnic groups and in the over 65s, which was seen as reassuring as some European countries had failed to approve the vaccine for this age group, citing lack of data. AstraZeneca said it would submit the data to publication in a peer …

Interim analysis of a phase III trial has found that the vaccine produced by Oxford University and AstraZeneca was 79% effective at preventing symptomatic covid-19 and 100% effective at preventing severe disease and admission to hospital. The results, announced in an AstraZeneca press release, have yet to be formally peer reviewed. Among the 32 449 participants, randomised 2:1 to vaccine and placebo groups, in the trial, which was carried out in the US, Chile, and Peru, there were 141 symptomatic cases of covid-19, the announcement said. The two doses of the vaccine were administered four weeks apart. The finding that the vaccine had 80% efficacy among participants aged over 65 years (a fifth of the total in the …

ObjectivesTo examine how often study funding and author conflicts of interest are stated in science and health press releases and in corresponding news; and whether disclosure in press releases is associated with disclosure in news. Second, to specifically examine disclosure rates in industry-funded studies.DesignRetrospective content analysis with two cohorts.SettingPress releases about health, psychology or neuroscience research from research universities and journals from 2011 (n=996) and 2015 (n=254) and their associated news stories (n=1250 and 578).Primary outcome measureMention of study funding and author conflicts of interest.ResultsIn our 2011 cohort, funding was reported in 94% (934/996) of journal articles, 29% (284/996) of press releases and 9% (112/1250) of news. The corresponding figures for 2015 were: 84% (214/254), 52% (131/254) and 10% (58/578). A similar pattern was seen for the industry funding subset. If the press release reported study funding, news was more likely to: 22% if in the press release versus 7% if not in the press release (2011), relative risk (RR) 3.1 (95% CI 2.1 to 4.3); for 2015, corresponding figures were 16% versus 2%, RR 6.8 (95% CI 2.2 to 17). In journal articles, 27% and 22% reported a conflict of interest, while less than 2% of press releases or news ever mentioned these.ConclusionsPress releases and associated news did not frequently state funding sources or conflicts of interest. Funding information in press releases was associated with such information in news. Given converging evidence that news draws on press release content, including statements of funding and conflicts of interest in press releases may lead to increased reporting in news.

Responding to President Trump's anti-Muslim executive order restricting immigration, the American Public Health Association (APHA) issued a press release recommitting the organization to human righ...

The UK government has asked the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to evaluate whether the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine can be authorised for temporary supply as soon as the data on safety, quality, and efficacy are submitted. If approved, the UK could receive four million doses by the end of the year and 40 million by the end of March 2021. But the request comes as questions have been raised over the researchers’ data, and AstraZeneca said that it would run a new global trial to test the lower dosage of the vaccine.1 The Oxford team reported their interim phase III results on 23 November through a press release. They said that the vaccine was found to be 62% effective when given as two standard doses (8895 participants) one month apart, but it was 90% effective when a half dose was followed by a standard dose regimen (2741 participants).2 The analysis included 131 covid-19 cases, …

The US election victory for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris brings new hope for science and healthcare.12 Rational argument and informed debate now have a sporting chance against misinformation. But we still have serious fights on our hands.3 Pfizer’s announcement of interim results for its covid-19 vaccine4—by press release and with no supporting data—had all the hallmarks of Gilead’s premature promotion of its drug remdesivir, which has sadly failed to live up to the hype.5 We must hope that the vaccine fares better as more data emerge. We do at least …

Background: Exaggerations in health news were previously found to strongly associate with similar exaggerations in press releases. Moreover such exaggerations did not appear to attract more news. Here we assess whether press release practice changed after these reported findings; simply drawing attention to the issue may be insufficient for practical change, given the challenges of media environments. Methods: We assessed whether rates of causal over-statement in press releases based on correlational data were lower following a widely publicised paper on the topic, compared to an equivalent baseline period in the preceding year. Results: We found that over-statements in press releases were 28% (95% confidence interval = 16% to 45%) in 2014 and 13% (95% confidence interval = 6% to 25%) in 2015. A corresponding numerical reduction in exaggerations in news was not significant. The association between over-statements in news and press releases remained strong. Conclusions: Press release over-statements were less frequent following publication of Sumner et al. (2014). However, this is correlational evidence and the reduction may be due to other factors or natural fluctuations.

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Über epidemiologische Studien wird häufig in den Medien berichtet, weil die Ergebnisse für viele Menschen von unmittelbarem Interesse sind. Es soll beispielhaft untersucht werden, ob die Ergebnisse epidemiologischer Studien in Printmedien verständlich und korrekt dargestellt werden. Methode Sämtliche Berichte aus 13 ausgewählten deutschen Printmedien zum Thema Fleischkonsum und Darmkrebs, die im Anschluss an eine Pressemitteilung der IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) vom 26.10.2015 erschienen sind, werden unter dem Gesichtspunkt ihrer Verständlichkeit und Korrektheit ausgewertet. Zudem wird untersucht, nach welchen Kriterien die Printmedien die Aussagekraft der Forschungsergebnisse bewerten. Ergebnisse 11 der 13 Printmedien übernahmen die Formulierung aus der Pressemitteilung, in der ein relatives Risiko angegeben wurde (18% Erhöhung des Darmkrebsrisikos pro 50 Gramm zusätzlichem Konsum von verarbeitetem Fleisch pro Tag). Da diese Formulierung von vielen Lesern möglicherweise als Erhöhung des absoluten Risikos um 18 Prozentpunkte missverstanden wird, ist die Angabe von absoluten Risiken sinnvoller. Absolute Risiken werden jedoch nur von 6 Printmedien korrekt angegeben. 5 Printmedien formulieren fälschlicherweise Schwellenwerte für den Fleischkonsum. Weitere Fehler liegen darin, die Indexgruppe ungenau zu beschreiben (etwa: „exzessive Fleischesser“ ohne Grammangabe), die Referenzgruppe nicht eindeutig zu benennen und darin, Zeiträume, für die ein Risiko berechnet wurde, nicht anzugeben. Wissenschaftsinterne Kriterien für die Bewertung der Qualität der epidemiologischen Studien wie Confounding und die Präzision bei der Erhebung des Fleischkonsums werden selten angeführt. Schlussfolgerung Schon in Pressemitteilungen sollte auf eine verständliche Darstellung von Maßzahlen, Effektschätzern und wichtigen Fehlerquellen geachtet werden. Im konkreten Beispiel hätte eine höhere Qualität der Pressemitteilung der IARC – insbesondere das Benennen absoluter anstelle relativer Risiken – vermutlich eine weniger missverständliche Berichterstattung in den Printmedien zur Folge gehabt.

Research that is poorly communicated or presented is as potentially damaging as research that is poorly conducted or fraudulent. Recent examples illustrate how the problem often lies with researchers, not press officers or journalists. The quest for publication and ‘impact’ must not outweigh the importance of accurate representation of science; herein, we suggest steps that researchers, journalists and press officers can take to help ensure this.

We are writing in response to a proposed rule announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a 24 April 2018 press release ([ 1 ][1]). The release reads, “The rule will ensure that the regulatory science underlying Agency actions is fully transparent, and that underlying scientific

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to analyze the determinants of citations such as publication year, article type, article topic, article selected for a press release, number of articles previously published by the corresponding author, and publication language in a Spanish journal of public health. Methods: Observational study including all articles published in Gaceta Sanitaria during 2007-2011. We retrieved the number of citations from the ISI Web of Knowledge database in June 2013 and also information on other variables such as number of articles published by the corresponding author in the previous 5 years (searched through PubMed), selection for a press release, publication language, article type and topic, and others. Results: We included 542 articles. Of these, 62.5% were cited in the period considered. We observed an increased odds ratio of citations for articles selected for a press release and also with the number of articles published previously by the corresponding author. Articles published in English do not seem to increase their citations. Conclusions: Certain externalities such as number of articles published by the corresponding author and being selected for a press release seem to influence the number of citations in national journals. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Purpose: Motor vehicle (MV) accidents are a leading cause of death among children in the United States (US). A 2012 AAP press release cited a 70% increased risk of death or injury for 7 to 8 year olds not properly restrained. The AAP recommends that infants and toddlers be secured in rear-facing child safety seats (CSS), and that children continue to be secured by CSS or belt-positioning booster seats until they reach the height of 4' 9”. Furthermore, all 50 states …

The efficacy of polymyxin B-immobilized (PMX) fiber column on septic shock is still under debate. Recently, the result from “Evaluating the Use of Polymyxin B Hemoperfusion in a Randomized controlled trial of Adults Treated for Endotoxemia and Septic shock (EUPHRATES)” trial has been announced as a press release. According to that report, less than a 5% mortality difference was recognized in the “per protocol population” (n = 244, 31.9 vs. 36.9%) and the decrease was not statistically significant. However, among the patients in refractory shock with a multiple organ dysfunction score of more than 9 and an EAA between 0.6 and 0.9, a 10.7% reduction in 28-day mortality was recognized (p = 0.0474) when they received two sessions of hemoperfusion using the PMX fiber column. Since this favorable effect was obtained from “post hoc” analysis, further study is expected.

The UK Statistics Authority has written to the Department of Health and Social Care asking how it justified its recent claims about £1.8bn of new funding for the NHS in England. When the prime minister announced the spending on 5 August,1 he referred to it as “a new £1.8bn cash injection.” The Department of Health and Social Care explained in a press release that this “new” money consisted of £850m for 20 hospitals to upgrade facilities and equipment and a £1bn boost to NHS capital spending. Outsiders immediately began raising questions about how new this money really was. Sally Gainsbury, an expert on …

During March 4-August 11, 2016, 25 outbreak-associated cases of meningococcal disease, including two deaths (8% case-fatality ratio), were reported in Southern California. Twenty-four of the cases were caused by serogroup C Neisseria meningitidis (NmC) and one by N. meningitidis with an undetermined serogroup (Figure). On June 24, 2016, in response to this increase in NmC cases, primarily among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Los Angeles County, the city of Long Beach, and Orange County, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a press release and health advisory, declaring an outbreak of NmC in Southern California (1).

Background: Health science findings are primarily disseminated through manuscript publications. Information subsidies are used to communicate newsworthy findings to journalists in an effort to earn mass media coverage and further disseminate health science research to mass audiences. Journal editors and news journalists then select which news stories receive coverage and thus public attention. Objective: This study aims to identify attributes of published health science articles that correlate with (1) journal editor issuance of press releases and (2) mainstream media coverage. Methods: We constructed four novel datasets to identify factors that correlate with press release issuance and media coverage. These corpora include thousands of published articles, subsets of which received press release or mainstream media coverage. We used statistical machine learning methods to identify correlations between words in the science abstracts and press release issuance and media coverage. Further, we used a topic modeling-based machine learning approach to uncover latent topics predictive of the perceived newsworthiness of science articles. Results: Both press release issuance for, and media coverage of, health science articles are predictable from corresponding journal article content. For the former task, we achieved average areas under the curve (AUCs) of 0.666 (SD 0.019) and 0.882 (SD 0.018) on two separate datasets, comprising 3024 and 10,760 articles, respectively. For the latter task, models realized mean AUCs of 0.591 (SD 0.044) and 0.783 (SD 0.022) on two datasets—in this case containing 422 and 28,910 pairs, respectively. We reported most-predictive words and topics for press release or news coverage. Conclusions: We have presented a novel data-driven characterization of content that renders health science “newsworthy.” The analysis provides new insights into the news coverage selection process. For example, it appears epidemiological papers concerning common behaviors (eg, alcohol consumption) tend to receive media attention. [JMIR Med Inform 2016;4(3):e27]

A citation advantage for research covered by the mass media is a plausible, but poorly studied phenomenon. Two previous studies, both conducted in the United States, found a positive correlation between media reporting and citations. Only one of these studies was able to conclude that the correlation was caused by a real "publicity effect" rather than by the media highlighting papers that are intrinsically destined to have greater scientific impact (called the `earmark' hypothesis). This study assessed the relative importance of the publicity effect outside the US, by comparing studies published in 2008 and 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that had been featured in newspapers in Italy and the United Kingdom. Newspapers in the two countries covered a similar range of topics, and tended to over-represent local (national) research. Compared to studies not appearing in any of the newspapers considered, those featured in British newspapers had around 63 % more citations, whilst in Italian newspapers 16 %. The proportion of citations from Italian authors, however, was significantly increased by newspapers, particularly by those in Italian. The equivalent effect on citations from the UK was smaller and only marginally significant. Studies accompanied by a press release did not receive, overall, significantly more citations. In sum, results suggest that the publicity effect is strongest for English-speaking media, whilst non-English reporting has mostly a local influence. These effects might represent a confounding factor in citation-based research assessment and might contribute to the many biases known to affect the scientific literature.

I sat staring at the computer on February 6th, 2006, thinking about the press release I was about to send and the potential impact it could have on the human race. The human implantable microchip, I thought, is about to make a major leap forward in the consciousness of the human mind and will be talked about and debated at a whole new level. It started over a year earlier, with Internet research. I was looking for asset tracking and found a new product involving implantable microchips for security.

US federal regulators have banned Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and chief executive officer of the biotechnology company Theranos, from operating blood testing laboratories for at least two years and have revoked the company’s laboratory certification, a company press release announced on 7 July. The California based company’s executives had promised to revolutionize the blood testing industry with a technology that Theranos said would make it possible to run multiple …

International audience; After reports of malaise in infants immediately after the oral administration of two brands of vitamin D solutions, a "Dear Doctor letter" (DDL) containing recommendations for the administration of vitamin D was sent to all French paediatricians and pharmacies and a large number of French general practitioners (GPs) with a predominantly paediatric practice. The DDL and a press release were published on the French Medicines Agency website and distributed via a mailing list. The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of such a DDL and to collect the opinions of healthcare professionals on the best way to provide them with information. METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to a national random sample of 145 paediatricians, 680 GPs and 230 pharmacists. RESULTS: Only 49% of responding paediatricians, 48% of GPs and 67% of pharmacists were aware of the warning. Among the participating healthcare professionals aware of the warning and who prescribed/dispensed these vitamins, 50% of paediatricians and 68% of GPs stated that they had changed their prescribing behaviour, and 68% of pharmacists stated that they had modified their advice when dispensing. According to the responding healthcare professionals, postal letters remained the best way to issue safety warnings. Some of the respondents suggested that the DDL be more distinctive in terms of being a DDL and that the information be more widely disseminated to other stakeholders involved in the healthcare system. CONCLUSIONS: This survey of a national random sample of healthcare professionals revealed that many of the respondents paid little attention to the DDL and were therefore unlikely to change their practices. A potential supplementary method for disseminating recommendations for medicine administration could be to apply stickers on medicine boxes, as this approach has the additional advantage of directly informing the concerned population, i.e. the parents.