The reshaping of medical news: The emerging medical pornography

[Guest guest]

http://www.redflagsweekly.com/second_opinion.php

May 19, 2004

 

THE RESHAPING OF MEDICAL NEWS: THE EMERGING MEDICAL PORNOGRAPHY

 

By RFD Editor Nicholas Regush

 

I’d truly like to be more cheerful about the future of medical news, but,

sorry, I can’t make up what I don’t see and feel. The future of medical

news will be a total mess.

 

If you think the alphabets – ABC, NBC, CBS – and more recently CNN and Fox

have made a mess of things, by focusing much of their news content towards

medical Establishment concerns and sensibilities, wait, just wait until

you really get the drift of what’s coming.

 

Sorry, some of you are going to hate me for this, but I do not feel

particularly happy that there are a ton of health sites on the Net. Why

not? Because many of them – and, indeed, before long, most of them – will

be MEDICAL HYPESITES. Ah, what does that mean? It means that their prime

interest will be to screw us out of money and time. Can things get worse

than that? More advertising, more poorly-researched “opinion,” more

clear-cut agendas energized by the search for profits.

 

I’m particularly ticked off by many of the doctor sites on the Net. Mainly

because the oddballs who run the most unsavory ones do not have a clue

about what constitutes conflict-of-interest. They offer advice, pretend

they are presenting news and manage to infuse their content with a series

of product pitches. How can anyone in his or her right mind believe

anything they have to say?

 

I’ve really had it with the medical screwballs on the Net. They have

polluted what might have been a damn good thing – namely the broadening of

the scope of ideas (without the stupid practice of shilling everything

from fish to the latest hybrid supplements).

 

It’s sad, really. Here we thought the Net was going to open up our

reality. Sure, in a way it has. Isn’t it great that the news gathering and

dissemination of ideas need not be processed by editors who work for

conglomerates? And isn’t it really great that intelligent people can

produce their own videos, columns, and reports, and send them around to

excite the passions of others? This is what the Net was supposed to be all

about. This still occurs these days, thankfully, but the Net is

increasingly degenerating into a free-for-all shill campaign, particularly

in the health area: more and more breakthroughs in mainstream and

alternative care, baloney cures, and opinions masquerading as facts. I

view all this as a form of medical pornography.

 

It’s also sad because technology is getting cheaper, which means, in

theory, at least, that more and more people could get involved in

producing their own shows or mini-networks; such enterprise, if fashioned

with grace and deep commitment, could truly make a real difference in the

way we learn about developments in health. It would mean maintaining a

critical eye, not getting snowed by the latest BS from the alphabets (who

spew out one breakthrough after another) and the latest BS from some of

the alternative health sites that appear to be run by morons who have no

idea what constitutes substance as opposed to hype. And yeah, forget about

the science. What in hell is that? And the real bummer here is that some

of these people don’t seem to give a damn.

 

In the future, not so far from now, it will be possible for many more

people to create videos (V-blogging, for example), and use a wide range of

equipment to produce medical news. I’m predicting that a ton of this will

be wedded to product sales and will become part of the ever-increasing

amount of medical bilge available for daily digestion.

 

If you think I’m being too pessimistic, take a day and scan the countless

health sites on the Net. Then tell me I’m wrong.