D had the cable news on this morning while I was getting ready for work. I wasn't watching it, or really listening to it, until they said something that caught my attention, so you'll excuse me for not getting all the details. But apparently one of the weekly mags is doing an issue on preventative healthcare and how this is all gonna save us all, and Society, tons o' money. Tons, I tell you.
What caught my attention was some (science, I assume) writer on there pimping out his article and maintaining that schizophrenia is now preventable. According to him, there are now "very accurate" tests that they can give to young children that will predict which ones are going to grow up to have serious mental illnesses like bipolar disease and schizophrenia, and--I think he was implying--if you put them on meds when they're little children, then they don't get fullblown whatever.
Two things. First of all, I work in a very respected pediatric neurology clinic, just downstairs from an also very respected pediatric psychiatry clinic, so I think if this were an accepted medical fact and the current standard of care, *I would have fucking heard about it by now and not on CNBC for the first time.* Secondly, science writers in general? Let me just say, what I have done in my non-massage job for the past almost 25 years is an extremely specialized field. I know *a lot* about a few things, rather than a little about many things, is what I am saying. And I have almost never read an article in the popular media, not in a newspaper, not in a popular magazine, that touched upon my little specialized base of knowledge and presented it in such a way that wasn't so dumbed-down that it was, basically, inaccurate. It's made me realize that these people who write these medical articles for the most part don't really understand what they are writing about on other than a very surface level. (That's also led me to realize that, oh, yeah, that means that most of what I read in the media about stuff that I don't know about or understand is also probably, y'know, being written about by journalists who don't really understand it either. It's made me take a whole bunch of things I might have formerly taken at face value with a grain of salt.)
Oh, third thing: this journalist on TV didn't use the term "serious mental illness." He said "psychological problems." Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are not psychological problems; they're organic brain diseases. So, there's proof of journalistic FAIL right there.
So, then the panel moves onto other "preventable diseases" covered in this article or series of articles. Like, for instance, obesity, according to, y'know, Mika. Or how ever you spell her name. Um, obesity isn't a fucking *disease*, either, you morons, you.
Luckily I had to jump in the shower before I threw something through the TV screen. But it was close.
xoxo
4 comments:
Speaking as a medical writer, it's people like that who give medical writers a bad name. Where I worked, it was always a problem motivating the journalists to understand why this narrative has to rise to a higher level of accuracy. Not only do you create false hopes, you can create false guilt in situations like this.
And people wonder why I'm tired of writing for a living.
Oh, but when writers like you who can actually do a good job give up on it, we're left with just the eediots :-(
Actually, now that I've already besmirched journalists today, let me offer up my opinion why most of them suck. I think they're just like social workers (most of whom, other than the lamented Cougar L, also suck). It's the kind of career most people leave fairly quickly because it's a pretty tough job that you don't make much money at; therefore the majority of the profession is made up of either a.) kids fresh out of school who are earnest, well-meaning, and don't know shit for shit or b.) people too lazy or stupid to move on to something else.
Okay! Tomorrow I'll work on slandering someone else's profession :-) :-) (Sorry.)
If it's any consolation, they generally don't get the tech writing any closer to the truth, either. Fortunately for me, since tech articles aren't often candidates for boosting circulation among the general population, save for the random major virus scare, the half and mis-truths aren't often as exaggerated or as dangerous.
When I told the journalists about my tech writing years, I commented that I never wrote fiction... intentionally.
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