In yet another example of how celebrities move messages, a new has study found that after NBC "Today" show host Katie Couric had a colonoscopy live on national TV in March
2000, colonoscopy rates nationwide jumped more than 20% in the days and months that followed. Researchers are calling it the "Katie Couric Effect." The study runs in the current
issue of Archives of Internal Medicine and was reported on in USA Today (July 15). Mark Fendrick, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan School
of Medicine, told the daily that "a celebrity spokesperson, even one without the condition he or she is promoting, can have a substantial and important impact on what the public
does related to that disease."
Is there anything celebrities can’t do? …
