Many of us have done countless rapid antigen tests (RATs) over the course of the pandemic. Testing ourselves at home has become second nature. But there’s also a growing worldwide market in medical tests sold online directly to the public. These are “direct-to-consumer” tests, and [...]
Transvaginal mesh (mesh) surgery was developed through collaborations between surgeons and device manufacturers, in 1996, for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence (incontinence) and/or pelvic organ prolapse (prolapse) in women. It was aggressively promoted to practitioners and rapidly adopted in practice. Clinical trials indicated mesh [...]
Last week, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney released a video of themselves getting colonoscopies to encourage others to undergo screening. The procedure detected polyps in the two men, both aged 45...
This study aimed to codesign and assess the feasibility of a multicomponent training intervention for journalists in Australia.
The professional service review (PSR) is an Australian Government agency aiming to reduce inappropriate practices funded via Medicare, Australia’s public insurer. Our objective was to examine changes in CT following the 2008–2009 PSR annual report, which noted excessive CT use.
n Reply We fully agree with the views put forward by du Perron and Finoulst in their response to our Research Letter on the media coverage of early detection tests. In fact, in a recent survey study that we conducted with 22 journalists in Australia, many [...]
Promotional media coverage of early detection tests is an important driver of overdiagnosis. Following research evidence that global media coverage presents the benefits of testing healthy people far more frequently than harms, and gives little coverage to overdiagnosis, we sought to examine journalists’ views on [...]
Healthcare is a rapidly expanding area of application for Artificial Intelligence (AI). Although there is considerable excitement about its potential, there are also substantial concerns about the negative impacts of these technologies. Since screening and diagnostic AI tools now have the potential to fundamentally change [...]
The use of more medicalised labels can increase both concern about illness and the desire for more invasive treatment. This study analyses the media’s coverage of an Analysis article in The BMJ which generated a large amount of high-profile international media coverage. It aims to understand how [...]
Much testing in medicine is aimed at healthy people to facilitate the early detection of health conditions. However, there is growing evidence that early detection is a double-edged sword that may cause harm in the form of overdiagnosis. The media can be seen as a [...]