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Avoiding The Fake Health News Trap
How to read health and medical news without being mislead
Most health news is fake news.
Poor reporting about health and medicine has created an epidemic of confusion and frustration among the public. Nevertheless, the clueless journalists and PR crews will inevitably continue to pump out misleading clickbait “health” content.
So, here are five quick tips to help you filter the actual news from the hyperbole.
1. Relative to what?
Whenever you see any health news story reporting that some drug, food, or habit reduces X disease by X%, stop immediately and determine: relative to what?
In most cases, you’re being shown a relative risk. When used in news stories, relative risks are nothing more than an attempt by the writer to make effects look bigger than they really are — period.
If a new drug “reduces heart attack risk by 50%,” that doesn’t mean jack if it’s 50% compared with another drug that reduces heart attack risk by just a little bit itself. Not to mention that the risk is already really low for most people — a small number can look big if it’s placed next to another small number.
