Journalists & Physicians Use Superlatives, Some Supplied by FDA - e.g., "Breakthrough" - to Describe Unapproved Cancer Drugs

The use of superlatives to describe cancer drugs in news articles as “breakthrough,” “revolutionary,” “miracle” or in other grandiose terms was common even when drugs were not yet approved, had no clinical data or not yet shown overall survival benefits, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology (JAMA Oncol. Published online October 29, 2015).

The authors searched for 10 superlatives (breakthrough, game changer, miracle, cure, home run, revolutionary, transformative, life saver, groundbreaking and marvel) in conjunction with the term “cancer drug” in a Google news search earlier this year between June 21 and June 25. The authors found 94 articles from 66 news outlets with 97 superlative mentions meeting the study criteria and referring to 36 specific drugs. Half of the drugs described had not yet received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for at least one indication.

Most of the 97 superlatives were used by journalists (55 percent); physicians (27 percent); industry experts (9 percent); patients (8 percent) and one member of Congress (1 percent). In 55 percent of the cases, the superlative was used by the author of the article without any other attribution.

Where do these journalists and physicians get their information about investigational drugs; i.e., drugs that have not yet been approved by the FDA?

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A Patient Journey Story Pharma Wishes Wasn't Told

Attend any pharma marketing  conference these days and most likely you will hear these buzzwords: "storytelling" and "patient journey."

For example, at iPharma 2015, Brandon Graham, Chief Creative Officer, EUXmedia, talked about "storytelling" and the "patient journey" and how to effectively use video to follow a typical patient in their "journey" from pre-diagnosis through therapy (read more about that here).

I hate to tell you this, but the news media does a much better job following Graham's advice than any pharma company I know. But media stories more often than not portray pharma as the villain, not the shinning knight that rides in to save the damsel in distress!

Take, for example, last night's NBC Nightly News story about Lauren Baumann, a cancer patient who manages her chronic myeloid leukemia by taking Gleevec, a medicine developed by Novartis (after much pushing & shoving by cancer patient advocates -- but that's another story).

What's her story? Why was it told on national TV? And what should have been done to prevent the story in the first place?

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