"Today's health reporters may have been covering crime last week and politics the week before," points out this month's PLoS Medicine editorial, which discusses the current state of health news reporting and the steps that can be taken to improve it. One initiative to monitor the quality of health reporting is HealthNewsReview.org, launched two years ago. In a Health in Action paper (Schwitzer, e95) published in this month's issue of PLoS Medicine, the publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, Gary Schwitzer, reports on the project's findings after the evaluation of 500 health news stories. And an essay (Moynihan et al., e106), also linked to the editorial, looks at how disease mongering—the corporate creation of new diseases in order to sell treatments—has become part of the global health debate.
Image Credit: Giovanni Maki, originally published as Figure 2 in Schwitzer G, Mudur G, Henry D, Wilson A, Goozner M, et al. (2005) What Are the Roles and Responsibilities of the Media in Disseminating Health Information? PLoS Med 2(7): e215 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020215
Editorial
False Hopes, Unwarranted Fears: The Trouble with Medical News Stories
PLOS Medicine: published May 27, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050118
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Essay
Disease Mongering Is Now Part of the Global Health Debate
PLOS Medicine: published May 27, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050106
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Perspectives
Retail Sales of Alcohol and the Risk of Being a Victim of Assault
PLOS Medicine: published May 13, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050108
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Neurological and Behavioral Consequences of Childhood Lead Exposure
PLOS Medicine: published May 27, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050115
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Is HIV Screening in the Labor and Delivery Unit Feasible and Acceptable in Low-Income Settings?
PLOS Medicine: published May 6, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050107
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A Paradigm Shift to Prevent HIV Drug Resistance
PLOS Medicine: published May 20, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050111
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Regulatory RNAs: Have mRNA Untranslated Regions Joined the Party?
PLOS Medicine: published May 20, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050110
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Health in Action
How Do US Journalists Cover Treatments, Tests, Products, and Procedures? An Evaluation of 500 Stories
PLOS Medicine: published May 27, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050095
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Guidelines and Guidance
A User's Guide to the NINDS rt-PA Stroke Trial Database
PLOS Medicine: published May 20, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050113
The Ancillary-Care Obligations of Medical Researchers Working in Developing Countries
PLOS Medicine: published May 20, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050090
Communicating the Results of Clinical Research to Participants: Attitudes, Practices, and Future Directions
PLOS Medicine: published May 13, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050091
Research in Translation
Resisting Immune Exhaustion in HIV-1 Infection
PLOS Medicine: published May 6, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050103
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Research Articles
Alcohol Sales and Risk of Serious Assault
PLOS Medicine: published May 13, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050104
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Association of Prenatal and Childhood Blood Lead Concentrations with Criminal Arrests in Early Adulthood
PLOS Medicine: published May 27, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050101
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Decreased Brain Volume in Adults with Childhood Lead Exposure
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Synergistic Effects of Hypofibrinolysis and Genetic and Acquired Risk Factors on the Risk of a First Venous Thrombosis
PLOS Medicine: published May 6, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050097
Expectations for Recovery Important in the Prognosis of Whiplash Injuries
PLOS Medicine: published May 13, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050105
Impact of Round-the-Clock, Rapid Oral Fluid HIV Testing of Women in Labor in Rural India
PLOS Medicine: published May 6, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050092
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Pharmacy Refill Adherence Compared with CD4 Count Changes for Monitoring HIV-Infected Adults on Antiretroviral Therapy
PLOS Medicine: published May 20, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050109
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Antigen Load and Viral Sequence Diversification Determine the Functional Profile of HIV-1–Specific CD8+ T Cells
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A Novel Tumor-Promoting Function Residing in the 5′ Non-coding Region of vascular endothelial growth factor mRNA
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Convergence of Mutation and Epigenetic Alterations Identifies Common Genes in Cancer That Predict for Poor Prognosis
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Correction
Correction: The Reversal of Fortunes: Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the United States
PLOS Medicine: published May 13, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050119