A heartwarming story on CBS News about a child’s medical treatment was in fact “incomplete and imbalanced,” according to Gary Schwitzer, on his HealthNewsReview blog.
Schwitzer, as regular Covering Health readers know, is an associate professor in the University of Minnesota School of Journalism & Mass Communication and publisher of HealthNewsReview.org.
Among the holes he sees in the story, reported by Sanjay Gupta:
- No mention of the costs of treatment
- How the child’s placement on a transplant list was affected
- Why the device used is not FDA-approved
- A lack of evidence that the device and treatment saved her life
Be sure to read what Schwitzer did find out about the medical device that was used. As he says, “Stories about new medical technologies – even those with such an emotional personal anecdote – should deal with evidence, not hyperbole about one anecdote.”
