Journalism is supposed to be impartial and unbiased. We all know that it’s not. But sometimes the mainstream media’s bias is so blatant that I wonder how they’ve been able to maintain their cloak of neutrality for so long.
I’m talking about last week’s news magazine segment on alternative cancer treatments. Chris Wallace from ABC’s “Primetime” news magazine clearly enjoyed the role of reporter-turned-spy as he poked around in several clinics in Mexico. It had all the trappings of today’s “good television”: hidden cameras, awkward confrontations, and doors slamming in faces.
Unfortunately, it didn’t have much in the way of balanced reporting.
Could the “experts” be any more biased?
The segment started out with the revelation that two out of three cancer patients will try “unproven” treatment during the course of their disease. Then Wallace introduced Dr. Steven Rosenberg, the head of the National Cancer Institute and an “expert” on “cutting-edge cancer treatments.” Rosenberg was asked to comment on a video of visits to several alternative clinics in Tijuana, Mexico.
The footage was recorded via hidden camera as Wallace visited each clinic along with a 75-year-old ovarian cancer patient from California who agreed to cooperate with ABC. In all, the show highlighted three clinics, which offered a variety of alternative cancer therapies like coffee enemas, electromagnetic therapy, insulin-induced coma therapy, ozonation, and hyperbaric chamber therapy. The Mexican video’s dramatic conclusion came when the ovarian cancer patient, who had previously undergone unsuccessful treatment at one of the featured clinics, was brought back to confront the clinic’s director.
As each therapy was introduced, Rosenberg dismissed them out of hand with terms like “mumbo jumbo.” I imagine his expertise in “cutting-edge cancer treatments” involves only those that come with a prescription.
And the entire broadcast zeroed in on the point that the ovarian cancer patient had spent over $15,000 on insulin-induced coma therapy at the clinic, which did nothing to halt the progression of her cancer. Yet no one commented on the fact that chemotherapy and other accepted conventional treatments have done nothing to help her, either. (And you can be sure that she didn’t get chemotherapy for free.)
As if the coverage weren’t already biased enough, ABC then brought in Dr. Stephen Barrett to comment on alternative medicine. For those of you unfamiliar with Barrett, he is the founder of QuackWatch, a website bent on discrediting alternative medicine. He was presented as an “expert,” although is a retired psychiatrist with no particular experience or education in cancer treatment or alternative medicine.
You never know where greatness will come from
The day after the broadcast, Barrett participated in a live chat on alternative therapies on ABC’s website. I don’t have enough room here to refute all the outrageous, close-minded, ignorant statements he made. But one in particular stood out.
“To my knowledge, there has not been a single idea in the past 50 years that was thought to be quackery and was later demonstrated to be useful,” Barrett said.
Really? That’s an interesting viewpoint. But I would emphatically disagree.
What about PC-Spes? Immunotherapy? Photodynamic therapy? All of these cancer treatments approaches were once thought of as “alternative.” Now they are widely accepted as mainstream.
If we reach beyond the realm of cancer research, I can think of even more. St. John’s Wort. Gingko biloba. Garlic. More than a few people called Linus Pauling a quack and he went on to win the Nobel Prize for his work on vitamin C.
And if we go back further than 50 years, there are many more examples of discredited ideas that revolutionized the world. I’m sure plenty of Watson and Crick’s colleagues thought they were wasting their time building a big model with little balls – yet look at the amazing strides science has made since they broke the genetic code. And what about that crazy guy who believed the world was round, when everyone knew it was flat?
Don’t let THEM control your options
Sure, there are quacks out there – in every branch of medicine, and in many other realms of society as well. We all have to exercise caution, especially when making decisions about our health.
But there’s only one person qualified to make those decisions – and that’s YOU. I don’t want some doctor at the NCI (or heaven forbid, someone like Stephen Barrett) deciding what therapies I can have access to. I want information about the pros and cons of all of my options – and only then will I make the choice that’s best for me.
As this broadcast illustrated, the mainstream media is generally not a good source of that information. Here at HSI, we’ll continue to try to fill that void, by bringing you the latest breakthrough research on all kinds of medical treatment. And we’ll continue to encourage you to find out more about treatment approaches that interest you and apply to your particular condition. There’s only one thing we won’t do – make those decisions for you. There are enough people out there trying to do that already.
More information about the PrimeTime broadcast, and the chat with Dr. Barrett can be seen on the ABC website, www.abcnews.com.
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