We need more stories like the one in today’s New York Times that addresses legitimate questions about mammography now being raised in the UK.

It started with an article in the BMJ about the inadequacy of British informational brochures on mammography. Then a letter to The Times of London entitled, “Breast cancer screening peril: Negative consequences of the breast screening programme.”

Legitimate questions – and demands for better information to be given to women.

In the Times story I’m particularly struck by the 75-year old woman diagnosed with DCIS – which creates anxiety and confusion for thousands of women. She says: “You don’t know about all the uncertainty until you’re one of the unlucky ones.”

The story details leading experts’ questions about whether mammography has been oversold to American women as well.

Dartmouth’s Dr. Lisa Schwartz wraps up the Times article with this:

“You’re not crazy if you don’t get screened, and you’re not crazy if you do get screened. People can make their own decision, and we don’t need to coerce people into doing this. There is a real trade-off of benefits and harms. Women should know that.”

I can already hear the rabidly screen-everybody-all-the-time advocates screaming about this story. But before they scream too loudly, they should walk a mile in that 75-year old woman’s shoes.

Jon Palfreman, who has produced some of the smartest health care and science documentaries anyone has ever produced, rolls out his newest tonight.

PBS Frontline. “Sick Around America.”

It follows his earlier “Sick Around The World” film.

And it will show once again how you can cover vital health policy issues on TV if you put your mind and creativity to it.

NBC said it “could be the magic bullet for preventing heart disease and strokes.” They threw up a “BREAKING NEWS” banner even though they acknowledged that each of the five pills in the “polypill” has been “around for a long time.”

The anchor called it “really big.” The NBC medical editor called it “very cool.” Then the anchor amplified by calling it “very promising.”

We call their hyperbole “very premature.”

The story contained none of the caveats contained in an AP story, which concluded:

“It won’t be for everybody,” (one expert) said. Some people would be overtreated by getting medicines for conditions they don’t yet have, such as high cholesterol. Others may be undertreated by too-low doses in the combo pill. Several polypills of different strengths may be needed, he said.

“We have to be cautious about assuming that one size fits all,” (another expert) said. “Treating risk factors is a lot like cooking — the ingredients count.”

About one-fifth of children with sensorineural hearing loss also have ocular disorders, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of OtolaryngologyHead and Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. An estimated one to three per 1,000 children have some degree of sensorineural hearing loss, which occurs as a result of damage to the nerves or the inner ear, as per background information in the article. Half of all cases in children result from environmental causes and half from genetic causes; one gene, GJB2, accounts for a large proportion of sensorineural hearing loss cases in white patients……..

A devastating indictment. That’s what Dr. Daniel Carlat – on his blog – called yesterday’s piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Drug firms’ cash skews doctor classes: Company-funded UW courses often favor medicine, leave out side effects.”

I’m late in weighing in on this, so I’ll just refer you to Carlat’s analysis.

But I will add this: somehow that little paper in Milwaukee continues to publish top-notch tough investigative health care journalism and their readers should appreciate what they’re getting while they’re still getting it. This story was more than 2,500 words of important news – not the usual 300 word drivel trumpeting breakthroughs from the medical journals. Carlat said “Occasionally, a piece of investigative journalism sets into motion processes that strike corrupt business practices at their core. …it will become required reading for all those involved in health care policy.”

Based on my reading of a New York Times story in my local Star Tribune today, I was ready to blast the Times.

I was reading the story out of the American College of Cardiology meeting on the new data suggesting that statins can reduce the risk of venous thromboembolism.

By how much can statins reduce the risk? Depends on which version of the NYT story you read.

The Times reports:

“With the relatively healthy people in the study, the number of clots was small — 94 total — but the placebo group developed 60 of them, compared with 34 for those taking the statin.”

But the Star Tribune version of the Times story doesn’t include that absolute risk reduction figure and, instead, only lists the more impressive sounding relative risk reduction figure:

“relatively healthy people who took a potent statin were 43 percent less likely than those who took a placebo to get a blood clot known as venous thromboembolism.”

The Wall Street Journal’s simple language was the most helpful for readers:

“34 participants who were taking Crestor developed VTE compared to 60 who were taking a placebo – a small absolute benefit but a relative risk reduction of 43 percent.”

To editors who trim wire stories – or who don’t know to look for absolute data – I can’t state strongly enough how incomplete your stories are if you don’t include absolute risk data.

Borrowing an analogy from Woloshin and Schwartz of Dartmouth, citing relative risk only is like having a coupon for 43 percent off. But you don’t know whether it’s 43 percent off the cost of a Lexus or off the cost of a lollipop.

GIVE US THE ABSOLUTE DATA OR DON’T GIVE US THE STORY AT ALL!!!

By zero we mean zero stars – our lowest score – on HealthNewsReview.org.

The ABC program’s segment last week, “Life Saving Test: How One Minute Can Save Your Life,” received one of our rare ZERO scores.

One of our reviewers even ran a stopwatch on the “one minute” test.

It took 5 minutes on live TV. Maybe it’s the lights.

But how long the test took was a relatively minor issue.

The segment was so bad that a leading gastroenterologist wrote to me asking us to review the story – something that was already underway when he wrote. I know he wrote to an ABC News producer as well. But that producer has told me he doesn’t share our reviews with his staff because he doesn’t think they are fair.

Maybe he likes the criticism of the letter-writing gastroenterologist better – who used terms like “disservice to the public…distorted…sensationalized…served fear and commercialized interests.”

Scientists from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a panel of small molecules, or metabolites, that appear to indicate aggressive prostate cancer. The finding could lead to a simple test that would help doctors determine which prostate cancers are slow-growing and which require immediate, aggressive therapy……..

Bad debt and bad debt. Two of the themes in two health care stories in the Star Tribune today. (Neither of the two links below this paragraph will take you to the complete story. The paper is reserving some content for the hard copy newspaper first – subject of an editor’s note in the paper today.)

Laid-off Minnesotans and those with jobs but without insurance have ballooned the number of individual health insurance plans that insurers are selling.

And hospitals are using new billing tactics to battle rising bad debt – tactics that surprise some who don’t associate this with health care.

Meantime, congratulations to the Star Tribune team of Josephine Marcotty, Chen May Yee, Warren Wolfe and Maura Lerner for winning a National Headliner Award for their project, “Your Choice: Health Care’s New Era.”

Former US Senator David Durenberger (R-Minn.), in his weekly newsletter this week, commented on the latest evidence raising questions about prostate cancer screening with the PSA blood test. And he reflected on a bit of prostate history on the Hill, writing:

“The first Senate PSA’s were performed on Bob Dole and Ted Stevens and they quickly passed legislation which had the effect of setting national blood testing standards for men at 40 which has resulted in billions of dollars in new income for the medical industry. And got Bob Dole a job selling erection enhancing drugs.”

Yeah, those political prostates can be profitable.