Why Most Biomedical Findings Echoed by Newspapers Turn Out to be False: The Case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

ContextBecause positive biomedical observations are more often published than those reporting no effect, initial observations are often refuted or attenuated by subsequent studies.ObjectiveTo determine whether newspapers preferentially report on initial findings and whether they also report on subsequent studies.MethodsWe focused on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using Factiva and PubMed databases, we identified 47 scientific publications on ADHD published in the 1990s and soon echoed by 347 newspapers articles. We selected the ten most echoed publications and collected all their relevant subsequent studies until 2011. We checked whether findings reported in each “top 10” publication were consistent with previous and subsequent observations. We also compared the newspaper coverage of the “top 10” publications to that of their related scientific studies.ResultsSeven of the “top 10” publications were initial studies and the conclusions in six of them were either refuted or strongly attenuated subsequently. The seventh was not confirmed or refuted, but its main conclusion appears unlikely. Among the three “top 10” that were not initial studies, two were confirmed subsequently and the third was attenuated. The newspaper coverage of the “top 10” publications (223 articles) was much larger than that of the 67 related studies (57 articles). Moreover, only one of the latter newspaper articles reported that the corresponding “top 10” finding had been attenuated. The average impact factor of the scientific journals publishing studies echoed by newspapers (17.1 n = 56) was higher (p<0.0001) than that corresponding to related publications that were not echoed (6.4 n = 56).ConclusionBecause newspapers preferentially echo initial ADHD findings appearing in prominent journals, they report on uncertain findings that are often refuted or attenuated by subsequent studies. If this media reporting bias generalizes to health sciences, it represents a major cause of distortion in health science communication.

How French media have portrayed ADHD to the lay public and to social workers

“…It is likely that this article echoed a study published in November 1990 in The New England Journal of Medicine claiming that glucose metabolism is depressed in the frontal region of ADHD adults. Indeed, this study has been widely covered by US newspapers, while the subsequent studies that disconfirmed this initial claim did not attract newspapers’ attention (Gonon et al, 2012). In contrast, two articles published in Libération said that brain imaging does not reveal obvious differences that characterize ADHD ( Libération , 31 August 2009 and 12 February 2015).…”

“…The biological repertoire describes ADHD as a neurological pathology and encourages its medication. English-written newspapers reporting scientific studies about ADHD almost exclusively support this repertoire (Gonon, Bézard, Boraud, 2011; Gonon, Konsman, Cohen, & Boraud, 2012). The psychosocial repertoire put forward inadequate parenting practices and social problems such as poor school systems, excessive TV exposure or high level of premature birth.…”

“Excellence R Us”: university research and the fetishisation of excellence

“…Another artifact of this positive bias is the "decline effect," or the tendency for the strength of evidence for a particular finding to decline over time from that stated on its first publication (Schooler, 2011;Gonon et al, 2012;Brembs et al, 2013;Groppe, 2015;Open Science Collaboration, 2015). While this effect is also well-known, Brembs et al have recently shown that its presence is significantly positively correlated with journal prestige as measured by Impact Factor: early papers appearing in high prestige journals report larger effects than subsequent studies using smaller samples (2013, see Figs.…”

Heroic struggles, criminals and scientific breakthroughs: ADHD and the medicalization of child behaviour in Australian newsprint media 1999–2009

“…Gonon and colleagues (2012) note print-media journalists’ propensity to publish findings from initial biomedical studies on ADHD, yet a lack of “follow-up” journalism related to subsequent studies. Given the cumulative nature of scientific knowledge (i.e.…”

“…Not surprisingly, ADHD is a topic often covered in the newsprint media (Gonon, Konsman, Cohen, & Boraud, 2012; Horton-Salway, 2011). As Horton-Salway (2011) describe in one of the few studies of this topic, ADHD has become increasingly common in UK newsprint media reports of child behaviour.…”