Dispatches from VitaFoods Europe 2013
System of embargoing press releases skews perception of nutrition studies, GOED chief says
Ismail said the way embargoed press releases concerning new studies are released to the public has changed, and results in the initial—and best remembered—stories written about these studies adopting the researchers' spin, without and opposing viewpoints. Ismail said in the case of the latest studies on secondary heart attacks released by JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine, the headlines read: "Omega 3s don't work" without mentioning the significant confounding factors of the heavy and changing pharmaceutical regimens the patients in the studies where on. The contribution of omega 3 supplementation to these patients' overall health and risk of subsequent cardiac events was swamped by the drugs, he said.
