Writing for Slate, Rahul Parikh chronicles the damage done by medical advice-dispensing celebrities then, acknowledging their influence and staying power, argues that physicians need to learn to work with these prominent folks and their pet causes.
In a sobering reminder of the line between journalism and celebrity advocacy, Parikh holds up colonoscopy advocate and news anchor Katie Couric as an example of the positives and negatives of celebrities with health-related causes.
Couric partners with doctors instead of undermining them like anti-establishment heroes Jenny McCarthy and Suzanne Somers, but she doesn’t disclose potential colonscopy risks or alternatives to the invasive procedure. Parikh also points out that celebrity sound bites don’t come with the high-speed, stacatto renditions of the small print that are required for other medical advertising, which leaves folks with a one-sided impression of the treatment.
