Why Chocolate is Not a Health Food--Sigh

I've always loved chocolate--especially dark chocolate. But the recent flurry of stories that chocolate could be some kind of wonder food leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This falls into a category of stories that journalists love to report and consumers love to read: Hey, what you think is bad for you is actually good. (And let's not forget another closely related category: what you think is good

Who Is Really Behind Your Health News?

It's official. Video news releases are now contaminating health news as well.VNRs (also called "fake news spots" and no, we're not referring to Comedy Central's news spoofs) are pre-packaged videos that are made to look and sound like a television station's own news spots but that have been produced entirely by outside organizations like PR agencies, non-profit groups and other institutions.Trudy

How Money Affects Results in Breast Cancer Studies

Breast cancer studies funded by pharmaceutical companies are more likely to report positive, or beneficial, results than those funded by government or non-profit organizations, according to a new report in the Journal Cancer. That doesn't necessarily mean that the results are wrong, as Amanda Gardner points out in the Washington Post. You would expect drug companies to have a better track record