Media articles of interest:

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

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



My online response: 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.

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