So, who else has read today's Page 1 story about alleged over-prescription of pain medication for workers who have suffered workplace injuries
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And really, that's the root of what I'm complaining about here. It's not the underlying facts; it's that in effect, the facts aren't what's being reported.
I love your brother's hypothesis about how opioid use might indeed have a negative impact on long-term recovery, at least in some patients: it has an elegant simplicity to it. But even if it's right, it doesn't get the Times off this particular hook, because if its implicit conclusion is correct, it's by sheer accident. The line about not knowing how or even whether the meds are implicated in the bad results still shows that they ran a story pushing a specific conclusion that they knew or believed they knew was not founded in the facts, just as if the facts they knew were entirely on the side they were pushing. And relied on tone and flow to carry the message to their readers unquestioned, despite the warnings that we shouldn't accept it. It's not the way a newspaper should be behaving.
Not that I think that either you or your brother necessarily disagree with me on this one, but I find myself still filled with rantiness. Wisconsin really, really didn't help me feel better about the larger problem.
I'm sure we'd both agree with you. The story ought to have been something like 'if narcotic painkillers are (over-)prescribed in spite of poor results, why is that and what should we do about it?' Instead, the writer wants to place his story within the context of a larger story - the 'problem' of 'the excessive use' of narcotics - while suggesting that narcotics might cause the development of chronic pain, something for which he has no evidence. He knows there's a problem - and there is - but he's only able to grasp the reasons and convey them to the reader in a fitful way so that, as you say, tone and flow leave the unwary reader with -- well, nothing much at all.
If he'd taken the information in the story, removed speculation and phrases like 'in a sense', and had explored just how inept doctors are when it comes to medications (other brother is a pharmacist, so I have views on this subject), and how insurers/government/health authorities want to weasel out of paying for better and more appropriate treatment, and how doctors deal with patient demands, and why narcotics aren't evil but the right drug for certain conditions and certain people, then he'd have had something like the beginnings of a proper story.
The sad thing is that one could write precisely this article about any number of other medications - i.e. medication x is overused and is driving up costs in spite of the fact that it doesn't work, may be counter-productive, and results in a host of symptoms/consequences that require more treatment and other medications and... You can see where I'm going with this.
It's hard to persuade people that not prescribing the med they think they need (because they've seen it advertised on TV) isn't about cost effectiveness; it's about not giving them what they don't need. But this is where people start talking about the evils of Obamacare cost/benefit boards and we don't need to go there. :D
I love your brother's hypothesis about how opioid use might indeed have a negative impact on long-term recovery, at least in some patients: it has an elegant simplicity to it. But even if it's right, it doesn't get the Times off this particular hook, because if its implicit conclusion is correct, it's by sheer accident. The line about not knowing how or even whether the meds are implicated in the bad results still shows that they ran a story pushing a specific conclusion that they knew or believed they knew was not founded in the facts, just as if the facts they knew were entirely on the side they were pushing. And relied on tone and flow to carry the message to their readers unquestioned, despite the warnings that we shouldn't accept it. It's not the way a newspaper should be behaving.
Not that I think that either you or your brother necessarily disagree with me on this one, but I find myself still filled with rantiness. Wisconsin really, really didn't help me feel better about the larger problem.
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If he'd taken the information in the story, removed speculation and phrases like 'in a sense', and had explored just how inept doctors are when it comes to medications (other brother is a pharmacist, so I have views on this subject), and how insurers/government/health authorities want to weasel out of paying for better and more appropriate treatment, and how doctors deal with patient demands, and why narcotics aren't evil but the right drug for certain conditions and certain people, then he'd have had something like the beginnings of a proper story.
The sad thing is that one could write precisely this article about any number of other medications - i.e. medication x is overused and is driving up costs in spite of the fact that it doesn't work, may be counter-productive, and results in a host of symptoms/consequences that require more treatment and other medications and... You can see where I'm going with this.
It's hard to persuade people that not prescribing the med they think they need (because they've seen it advertised on TV) isn't about cost effectiveness; it's about not giving them what they don't need. But this is where people start talking about the evils of Obamacare cost/benefit boards and we don't need to go there. :D
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