Toying with titles

As a Canadian-born and trained physician, I was both amused and disappointed by the irony in the same-page publication of 2 news articles in CMAJ. In "Media coverage of health stories often inaccurate, MDs report,"1 Greg Basky nicely reviews a Canadian Science Writers Association survey in which only 34% of physicians believed that accurate media coverage occurs for medical health information. Forty-one percent felt that poor reporting was "primarily due to the media's desire to grab audience or reader attention."

The irony comes when this sentence is seen in juxtaposition with the headline of the subsequent anonymous report. "Vinyl toys, medical devices get clean bill of health"2 cites the findings of "an independent, non-profit group of US researchers" formed by the ACSH, an organization apparently self-described as "helping Americans distinguish between real and hypothetical health risks." Your reporter acknowledges that this panel's report "directly contradicts another study from an international consortium of 180 organizations, including the American Nurses Association."

The headline clearly gives CMAJ readers the impression that these chemicals are safe, in spite of grave doubt about the matter. Not stated is that the ACSH is a source of considerable controversy itself, being heavily funded by the chemical industry. One might reasonably question if any panel of experts chosen would likely reflect the views of the body that formed it.

In the spirit of accuracy in medical reporting, I would suggest that a more appropriate title to this article would be "Debate continues over safety of vinyl toys, medical devices."