Globe and Mail: 2 articles: Obesity and Ovarian Cancer and McHealth stories leave us all hungry

globesports.com: McHealth stories leave us all hungry

Media articles of interest:

Obesity / Ovarian cancer article: http://tinyurl.com/9ak8st

McHealth stories: http://tinyurl.com/7xmwsf



My online response as below: http://tinyurl.com/9554b6

(S Pniauskas, from Canada) wrote:

A prime example of the ethical, moral and professional duty of apparent
medical reporting is Andre's recent article:  "Obesity raises risk of ovarian cancer".

In fact, the paper Body Mass Index and Risk of Ovarian Cancer (2009 American Cancer Society/Cancer Journal) as published:

"Conclusions: Based on the results of the current study, the authors SUSPECT that obesity....As observed in numerous previous investigations summarized in a recent meta-analysis of the available literature, BMI at baseline was associated with a modest but statistically NONSIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN RISK for ovarian cancer in our cohort as a whole... "

The whole article in the Globe regarding Obesity and Risk of Ovarian Cancer is significantly pathetic including the fact that the last sentence regarding risk of recurrence/higher rate of death is not accurate. What is accurate is the fact that if chemotherapy treatments are given according to BMI then the risk is Nil.

Ovarian Cancer and most cancers cannot simply be explained away by simple one page articles and to try to do so places additional burdens on our populations which are in fact fighting for and often losing the challenge of trying to live with life threatening cancers. Research communities publish their work as a 'work in progress' and not as the final solution to extremely complicated issues. Many factors influence the onset and risk of ovarian and other cancers and we simply are not there yet in understanding the full implications of any particular one or two potential issues.

It is an old lesson yet learned that medical reporting has a duty to understand the full context of the issues, as well as a duty to do no harm, which is not exclusively held to medical professionals but to also to medical reporting.

There are educational courses available to medical journalists and consumers, one being through the Cochrane Collaboration.