Glad to see this out there
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/health/13auti.html?_r=1&ref=health
It's a media habit -- and I am asked to do this in my reports sometimes -- to address what "internet sites are saying" about x, y, and z. Generally what internet sites are saying is that some particular food or drug causes disease. If you look at these internet sites, they are not legitimate scientific sites, but rather a place for advocates of certain deeply held positions to disseminate their views.
Strength of opinion is not the same as strength of evidence.
I strive in my reporting to be evidence-based. To highlight the strength of study design, to report absolute numbers and not just relative numbers, to avoid generalizing from anecdotes, to point out the positive and the negative, to look for hard end points in study methodology.
I am dismayed that science is so maligned, is put on equal footing with opinion, and so misunderstood and distorted by the media and media bosses. I am concerned that science, if it's not understood or if it explores the unknown, is dismissed as "theory" in favor of more magical/religious/dogmatic explanations. Unfortunately science is perceived a "boring" to the masses, the domain of elite intellectuals, and not as intriguing as the innuendo of conspiracy that abounds.
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The problem as you so aptly put it is not limited to the medical sciences. There are other disciplines that the public shows an equal amount of boredom for and ignorance of. Economics for one. And there is a lot of stuff being disseminated on the 'net and through major media that is short on both empirical knowledge and wisdom and very long on opinion and agendas. Regardless...fight the good fight. It's hard to be purple....
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