It often seems that there is very little therapeutic value in reading news reports relating to health and medicine. In fact, health-related statistics at global and national
levels can easily make anyone ill with their unhappy statistics. This week, we grit our teeth and examine a trio of recently published surveys relating to health and wellness.
Can we find glimmers of Good PR in their statistics, or are they examples of fever-inducing Bad PR?
| The PR Focus | Good PR or Bad PR? |
|---|---|
| A new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 85% of the top food brands targeted at children through TV ads are extensively promoted via
branded Web sites aimed at kids. By using online games, promotions and viral marketing tactics to keep young Net surfers occupied, the food brands are successfully using cyberspace to maintain very close contact with their young target markets. |
BAD PR: The survey did not name names, but we know which brands are being talked about here: High-sugar, low-nutrition (or no-nutrition, truth be
told) edibles which have contributed to the fattening of American youth and the increasingly abysmal health concerns among children. But give blame to America's parents - not only for feeding this junk to their kids, but also for not supervising their Web activities. |
| No one would accuse hospitals of being infallible, but the recent survey from the Institute of Medicine discovered there are at least 1.5
million hospitalized patients are harmed by drug errors - and more than half of them are in nursing homes. The survey estimates an annual figure of 400,000 preventable drug- related hospital injuries that cost at least $3.5 billion; another 530,000 drug-related errors affect outcare Medicare recipients. |
BAD PR: The new report is actually a follow-up to a 1999 survey that claimed as many as 98,000 people were killed annually by medical errors. J.
Lyle Bootman, co-chairman of the Institute of Medicine's report panel, put a positive spin on the new survey by telling the Associated Press: "We've made significant improvements since 1999." Bootman, perhaps realizing he was being a bit too optimistic, then added: "But we still have a long way to go." |
| The Union of Concerned Scientists released a survey of 1,000 Food and Drug Administration scientists, which found that 15% of those polled
claiming they were asked "for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or conclusions in an FDA scientific document." The survey found 40% of the scientists feared retaliation by the FDA if they tried to make their concerns public. |
BAD PR: While the Union of Concern Scientists has publicly clashed with the Bush Administration's approach to scientific funding, this survey is
more than angry politics. It mirrors the Department of Health and Human Services' 2002 survey which put the number of scientists being told to fiddle about with their findings at 20%. An FDA spokesperson, interviewed by Bloomberg News, dismissed the new survey as "leading questions and innuendo." |