Guidelines for Distinguishing Hope from Hype
by Virginia Ross
"Do you think the medical establishment can provide hope in a realistic, educating manner and avoid the pitfalls of hype? I usually find the best guide for patients is a physician they trust."
— Robert Mayer, M.D.
A recent New England Journal of Medicine article reported that a high proportion of media coverage about new medications understated risks, glossed over costs, and failed to disclose researchers' financial ties to drug manufacturers.
With alternative therapies, such as nutritional supplements and herbal preparations that do not undergo the same governmental regulation as conventional medications, distinguishing between accurate and overstated claims can be even more problematic.
The following suggestions may help readers of reports on cancer research to separate legitimate hope from hype:
- Seek information from credible sources, including a physician you trust, and organizations, and Web sites known to be reliable;
- Beware of articles, broadcast reports, or Web site information that claim an ability to cure all, or a wide range of, cancers. Different types of cancers respond to different treatments;
- Put more credence in treatments that cite sources such as peer-reviewed medical journals. One measure of the importance and validity of research studies is whether they are published in journals requiring high standards of protocol design;
- Differentiate between research that has been done in the laboratory and therapies that are in clinical trials with patients. Know the difference between such investigation and a report on a few patients in a small study that may have attracted publicity at a medical meeting;
- Understand the purpose of clinical trial phases. Phase I trials, for example, are designed to measure the safety, not the effectiveness, of a treatment. Surveys have shown that four of five drugs tested in Phase I trials do not make it to market because they are too toxic or are proven ineffective in subsequent studies;
- Pay special attention to cautionary statements in articles. Be skeptical of undocumented, anecdotal claims.
