The Huffington Post’s poor science raises the question of what are the ethics of heath and medical writing and blogging? I posed the question to Dr. Robert Lamberts, a primary care physician, who writes the well-respected blog Musings of a Distractible Mind. When I asked him about the rules (formal or informal) of science blogging, he told me that health writers and bloggers expect one another not just to provide a clear perspective, but also to make sure that they disclose any potential conflicts of interest, citing appropriate sources and changing inaccuracies when pointed out. That seems like a more than reasonable expectation, yet the Huffington Post does none of these things with diligence. “I do have problems with people without medical backgrounds … becoming medical experts and influencing people to their opinions like they are political opinions,” he told me. “This is the problem with the whole immunization ‘debate.’ It is not being done between medical professionals, but instead is being handled like it is a political discussion — trying to convince people based on emotions rather than facts.”
Not long ago, Huffington praised President Obama for stating he wanted to ensure “that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.” But Huffington has distorted science and facts to serve a health agenda. In correspondence with me, she insisted her site doesn’t “impose an editorial litmus test favoring one discipline over another.” In the end, though, a sincere editorial process is about more than offering a range of disciplines. It is about holding writers accountable for the fairness and accuracy of their messages. And right now fairness and accuracy in health and medicine take a back seat to sensationalism and self-promotion on the Huffington Post.
Friday 31 July 2009
The Huffington Post is crazy about your health ☀
A GNT creation ©2007–2011
