On 10/21/04 9:33 PM, "Janice Reynolds" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> My question/comment:
> Its interesting to see which studies "hit the news" and which don't.  There
> is 3 breast milk studies in this issue of this journal, alone.  I assume
> that there are many, many other studies about breastfeeding/breastmilk that
> are never reported in the news.  I speculate that it is the researchers that
> have a good Public Relations team behind them, that makes the effort to
> write and send out the press releases, that gets a study covered.???
> (Jodine, any comment?)

It's possible that the news coverage that resulted was as intended and that
there is a good pr team on board. But misleading coverage can also happen by
accident when researchers or officials decide to publicize without clearly
considering their messaging goals. And sometimes it's just the that the
media get it wrong. I can't say what the case is this time.

It would be interesting to obtain the news release that was distributed, or
to talk to the reporters involved in initial coverage to see how they came
to be aware of the study and how they chose the angle of their coverage. I'm
about to head into a provincial election here and I don't have much time to
follow-up - otherwise the coverage has so intrigued me that I would make
some inquiries.

I note our local paper picked up the CP story (the one that had a reasonable
comparison of the higher antioxidant rates in breastmilk vs formula) but it
didn't include any of this information. In fact, it didn't talk about
formula antioxidant rates at all - it only mentioned formula in the context
of how some women who use day care use formula in the day care. The focus
was simply on how antioxidants were lost through refrigeration/freezing.

-- Jodine Chase

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