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Research has long shown that Americans from minority groups and those with a lower socioeconomic status are less likely to get routine dental visits than patients who are white and more affluent. A new study finds that even when minorities or those who are poorer and less educated do receive oral health services, they are less likely to receive oral cancer (OC)screenings that could lead an early diagnosis. Continue reading
Ten journalists have been chosen for the 2019 class of the National Cancer Reporting Fellowships. AHCJ will be presenting the fellowships with expertise from the National Cancer Institute and others. The program is being supported by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.
The fellows will spend four days on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., to increase their understanding of and ability to report accurately on complex scientific findings, provide insight into the work of cancer researchers and to better localize cancer-related stories.
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Physicians in all fields of medicine rely on guidelines developed by professional medical organizations to inform how they care for patients. These guidelines, whether defining what counts as hypertension or laying out how best to care for pregnant women, constitute the standard of care in that particular field. To call them influential is a huge understatement.
Since most of these guidelines discuss treatments, it’s reasonable to pay attention to whether those writing the guidelines might have a bias for or against a particular treatment that’s not based on evidence. It’s impossible to be certain of this for all guideline authors, but ensuring they aren’t receiving big checks from industry is one way to guard against bias. Continue reading
Alexandra Glorioso, a Florida health reporter for Politico, joined AHCJ for a webcast about what being diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer at age 31 taught her about reporting on health care.
Before we say anything else – after a rough year with chemo, surgery, and radiation – Glorioso is doing well. She’s in remission (and planning her wedding!). Continue reading
Otis Brawley, M.D., and Matthew Ong, of The Cancer Letter, were on the panel “How precision medicine and immunotherapy are redefining the approach to cancer treatment.”
Are precision medicine and immunotherapy overhyped as cancer treatments, or do they hold such tremendous promise that we are only just starting to see the potential?
That was the overarching question for the panel discussion at Health Journalism 2019, “How precision medicine and immunotherapy are redefining cancer treatment.”
“I do worry that precision medicine and immunotherapy are overhyped,” said Otis W. Brawley, M.D., Bloomberg distinguished professor of oncology and epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Brawley also was the Thursday night speaker at Health Journalism 2019. Continue reading
Occasionally doctors are apt to make claims, especially when money is involved, that are not based in science or fact. That’s why we need health journalists, said Otis Brawley, M.D., today’s Health Journalism 2019 spotlight speaker. We need journalists who understand medicine to be skeptical and not take these claims at face value.
Brawley is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he researches health disparities in cancer, examining which populations are most affected and quantifying how many people are impacted negatively. Continue reading