Tag Archives: science

Research praising red meat is like … red meat for the masses: These studies need extra scrutiny

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Photo: Mitchell Gerskup via Flickr

“Too much red meat can cause cancer.” It’s a depressing statement for the bacon and beef lovers out there, but it’s a part of nearly every major medical organization’s evidence-based guidelines for several years.

In fact, as I was covering the North American Menopause Society’s annual meeting last weekend, the session on lifestyle risk factors for breast cancer specifically included limiting consumption of red meat and processed meats as one of the 10 recommendations for reducing cancer risk from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) and the World Cancer Research Fund. Continue reading →

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Those images really are more than pretty pictures …

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Photo: Tara Haelle

I just returned from the Logan Science Journalism Fellowship program at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and I’m excited to share some of the things I learned while there. The program itself — which I highly encourage folks to apply to — is different from any other health or science journalism program I’m aware of because there’s pretty much no journalism involved at all. Instead, it’s basic science that journalism fellows do. Continue reading →

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Gaining a deeper appreciation for the costs of basic science

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Photo: Tara Haelle

It’s not difficult to understand why clinical trials are so incredibly expensive. There’s the recruitment of the participants and their compensation, the cost of the drugs themselves, the work that has to go into ensuring both participants and clinicians are appropriately blinded (at least in double-blinded trials), the many visits to monitor symptoms and improvement, the time spent crunching the data – the dollars add up fast.

It’s harder (at least for me) to grasp where all the money goes for basic science. It’s often just cells in a petri dish, along with the fancy (and very expensive) microscope and computer equipment needed to examine them. Continue reading →

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Nuance can help keep science ‘crises’ in context

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Every journalist covering medical and other types of scientific research should read this thought-provoking open-access article recently published in PNAS: “Crisis or self-correction: Rethinking media narrative about the well-being of science.”

This piece by Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania is one of the best articles I’ve read about how to think about the big picture in our coverage of medicine and science and the public perception of media narratives about science. It’s one of those rare, important writings whose entire purpose is to examine the nuance that’s missing – yet essential – in the majority of science and medicine coverage. Continue reading →

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Hungry for weight loss: Challenges and hope in the battle against obesity #AHCJ16

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Photo: Melinda HemmelgarnCarolyn E. levers-Landis, Ph.D., and Bartolome Burguera, M.D., Ph.D.

Photo: Melinda HemmelgarnCarolyn E. levers-Landis, Ph.D., and Bartolome Burguera, M.D., Ph.D.

As a registered dietitian who has studied obesity prevention and treatment for more than three decades, I was intrigued by the Health Journalism 2016 session titled: “Science: Breaking Down Obesity.”

The panel featured endocrinologist, Bartolome Burguera, M.D., Ph.D., director of obesity programs at the Cleveland Clinic, and licensed clinical psychologist, Carolyn E. Ievers-Landis, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics, Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. Abe Aboraya, health reporter with WMFE-Orlando, moderated. Continue reading →

Melinda Hemmelgarn, M.S., R.D., is an award-winning writer, speaker and radio host specializing in food, health and nutrition. She works to help consumers understand how daily food choices affect personal health and our global environment.