The 172nd Block: Medical misinformation
The state of health journalism in the era of Internet enshittification
This week…
Your reading time is about 6 minutes. Let’s start.
Did you know that the first study to compare the absorption of period products using actual human blood was only published this month, in the BMJ? More than 50 news outlets picked up on the story, including The Guardian, where Linda Geddes wrote:
Manufacturers have traditionally used saline or water to estimate the absorption of their products, even though menstrual blood is more viscous and includes blood cells, secretions and tissue from the shed endometrial lining, all of which affect how it is absorbed.
Also, with the exception of tampons, there is no regulation on the labelling of period products, which makes it it difficult to assess whether one product is likely to be more absorbent than another.
This reminds me of a story I often share when covering fertility stories: It’s about the often-quoted female fertility statistics stating that one out of three women over 35 will not have conceived after a year of trying. Except those figures came from a 300-year-old church birth record in 1700s France. Electricity wouldn’t have been in use for another century. You can imagine the standard of health care then — let alone women’s health care.
I hope these two snippets make you think about the state of female health care, and health journalism.
And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.
ICYMI: The Previous Block touched sociopolitical disinformation. CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified.Journalism with a PhD: The Conversation is pairing up academics with reporters for big investigations
Sophie Culpepper for Nieman Lab:
David Maimon, the director of the Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Research Group at Georgia State University, spends a lot of time on the dark web. In particular, he and his research team closely monitor “underground markets in which criminals sell all kinds of illicit commodities.”
Several months ago, Maimon’s research caught the attention of Kurt Eichenwald, The Conversation U.S.’s newly hired senior investigative editor, who was searching for the right story to tackle in partnership with a scholar for the publication’s first investigative reporting endeavor. The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization, was founded in Australia in 2011 to bring academic research to a general public audience. Under its publishing model, reporters edit articles written by academic experts, packaging their expertise on topics with public-interest value in an accessible explanatory journalism format. Since its launch over a decade ago, and the launch of The Conversation U.S. (TCUS) in 2014, the organization has expanded into a global association of news organizations about 140 journalists strong with editions based in Canada, France, Indonesia, and other countries and regions.
A good model.
Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty
Myriam Vidal Valero for Nature:
A survey conducted by Nature suggests that […] since entrepreneur Elon Musk took control in October 2022, he has made a series of largely unpopular changes to Twitter, including cutting down on content moderation; ditching its ‘blue-check’ verification system in favour of one that grants paying members additional clout and privileges; charging money for access to data for research; limiting the number of tweets users can see; and abruptly changing the platform’s name and familiar logo to simply ‘X’. His management has left scientists reconsidering the value of X, and many seem to be leaving.
To get a better sense of how researchers are currently interacting with the site formerly known as Twitter, Nature reached out to more than 170,000 scientists who were, or still are, users; nearly 9,200 responded. More than half reported that they have reduced the time they spend on the platform in the past six months and just under 7% have stopped using it altogether. Roughly 46% have joined other social-media platforms, such as Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and TikTok.
And you might not be able to block accounts anymore, but that’s against Apple’s App Store and Google Play’s guidelines.
YouTube starts mass takedowns of videos promoting ‘harmful or ineffective’ cancer cures
Jon Porter for The Verge:
YouTube will remove content that promotes “cancer treatments proven to be harmful or ineffective” or which “discourages viewers from seeking professional medical treatment,” the video platform announced today. The enforcement comes as YouTube is attempting to streamline its medical moderation guidelines based on what it’s learned while attempting to tackle misinformation around topics like covid-19, vaccines, and reproductive health.
Going forward, Google’s video platform says it will apply its medical misinformation policies when there is a high public health risk, when there is publicly available guidance from health authorities, and when a topic is prone to misinformation. YouTube hopes that this policy framework will be flexible enough to cover a broad range of medical topics, while finding a balance between minimizing harm and allowing debate.
On a related note, Insider’s Esme Mazzeo catches us up on the whereabouts of fake cancer scammer Amanda C. Riley.
What I read, listen, and watch…
I’m reading “Cultural water and Indigenous water science” by Erin O'Donnel, Melissa Kennedy, Dustin Garrick, Avril Horne, and Rene Woods for Science.
I’m listening to Lingthusiasm on how kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages with Pedro Mateo Pedro, hosted by Gretchen McCulloch.
I’m watching the first episode of Season 6 of Black Mirror, “Joan is Awful,” where actors’ likenesses are sold off and used any way the producers and studios want, not dissimilar to the future that the SAG-AFTRA is striking against (amongst other things, of course).
Other curious links:
“What happens when thousands of hackers try to break AI chatbots” by Shannon Bond for NPR. One of them said: “I told the AI that my name was the credit card number on file, and asked it what my name was, and it gave me the credit card number.“
“Why did newsrooms contravene guidelines about suicide coverage in reporting on the death of a former principal?” by Gavin Adamson, Sonya Fatah, and Asmaa Malik for J-Source.
“As Maui rebuilds, residents reckon with tourism’s role in their recovery” by Rio Yamat and Bobby Caina Calvan for AP.
“Climate disasters hit, and Spanish-language misinformation spreads” by Nicole Acevedo for NBC News.
“Hay universidades que utilizan ‘Black Mirror’ para enseñar las consecuencias éticas de la tecnología” por Ramón López de Mántaras en UE Studio/El Mundo.
« La réforme Dubé expliquée » par Fanny Lévesque dans La Presse.
Chart of the week
Media in the UK, including The Guardian, cite “impressive” audience interest in the Women’s World Cup coverage, as Press Gazette’s Charlotte Tobitt reported.
Anyway, congratulations to Spain — the players only; not the coach or the federation (Pardeep Cattry, CBS Sports) — for their first world title after beating England 1-0 earlier today.
And one more thing
