In line with the development of science and technology today, reports on the development of science are increasingly gaining a place among our society. However, we find that some of us are easily confused and often exposed to inaccurate information after reading science-related news and articles on websites. This kind of confusion and confusion of information is more visible especially in the field of medical science and nutrition.
Such confusion can be overcome when readers take proactive steps to understand the content of news and science articles. The following four steps can be used as a basic guideline to make you a more critical reader.
Sensational Title
The first principle that needs to be taken into account when processing news and science articles is to identify the title: is it deliberately sensationalized or not. Readers may be able to identify deliberately sensational headlines such as "this miracle food cures diabetes in three days". However, deliberately sensationalized titles can also appear in forms that are difficult to identify if read at a glance.
For example, a headline such as "scientists have found a cure for cancer in the saffron herb" might be nominated as a sensational headline. Why? In short, cancer is a disease of multiple factors and forms and is very complex from a biological point of view.
For example, breast cancer itself has fifteen types. Each type of breast cancer listed requires a different treatment protocol that depends on location, size, genetic factors, and others. What I want to convey here is that when you read news that claims certain foods can cure complex diseases like cancer, you should consider leaving the site immediately.
Additionally, sensationalized titles may be used to drive sales of nutritional products. If you read a title like "this natural supplement can treat kidney disease", you are advised to read carefully or leave the page.
To protect consumers in Malaysia, the Malaysian Ministry of Health's (KKM) pharmacy service portal insists that advertising of health and beauty products is prohibited from making medical claims against 20 diseases as shown in the infographic below. If you come across an advertisement for a medicine or treatment that can cure chronic diseases in a relatively short time, please report it to the Ministry of Health immediately to prevent other users from being bombarded with false hopes that may kill.
Original Source
The quality of news and science articles is closely related to its original source. In general, news related to scientific studies should be accompanied by original sources from scientific journals. When you read science news on a website, all you have to do as soon as you read the headline is find the link to the original source of the study.
For example on the Science Daily website, the editorial team on the site includes original sources from scientific journals on almost every news item published. This allows readers to make two conclusions. First, it signals to the reader the validity of the reported findings. Second, the research published as a journal has already gone through a process of screening and verification by the scientific community.
If you are interested in doing further verification, we have some additional tips. The first tip is that once you have successfully obtained a copy of the scientific journal, you need to identify where the scientific journal is published. If it is published by a publishing group such as Nature, Science, The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and its contemporaries, it is the result of a high-quality study.
A final additional tip is to identify the researchers involved. According to the custom and format of journal writing, the first name on the list of authors is usually (but not necessarily) a philosophy degree student (Ph.D.) while the last name is the supervisor of the student in question. Other names participating may be Ph.D students. and faculty members who also contributed data and analysis when the research process was conducted and documented.
Here you want to focus more on the last name which is the supervisor because he is the individual responsible for supervising the research process. This is because the reputation of a study is usually closely related to the individual who supervises the study.
Non-Human Model Organisms
Usually in the field of biology/biotechnology, the process to develop new treatments and medicinal substances has to go through a very long process. For example, the vaccine for the dengue virus took more than 20 years to develop. At the time this article was written, the vaccine (Dengvaxia) was still going through the trial process to make sure it was really effective and the side effects were documented carefully and in detail.
When a team of researchers conducts research to develop new treatments for a particular disease, the initial stages of the study often use human cells or certain animals in the laboratory. For example, research to develop cancer treatment (chemotherapy) is carried out on cancer cells in dishes at an early stage. Then, the study may be conducted on model organisms such as laboratory mice or roundworms.
What is the meaning behind this? In short, when you read the news that a group of scientists have discovered a new treatment agent for a certain disease, you need to pay more attention to the subjects of their study: was the study conducted on humans or animals?
As a quick tip, if the published studies are conducted on model organisms such as laboratory mice, you can make a rough estimate that the treatment being developed may take 10 to 30 years to be marketed or used as a standard treatment protocol in a medical center. These expectations are realistic and will be further elaborated in the future.
Statistical Power
Even if the study is conducted on humans and records positive results, we still need to be careful. The rigorous research process emphasizes statistical elements.
For example, a study published by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 concluded that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine was linked to autism and bowel disease. However, the study conducted by Wakefield received criticism and a bad reputation due to two main aspects: Wakefield came to the conclusion based on only 12 patients and Wakefield was found to be conducting research procedures on his patients without first obtaining ethical approval.
If 12 subjects alone cannot be adopted as proof of the study, then how many should we need? The answer is as much as possible according to the suitability and purpose of the study. For example, to conduct a study on a complex disease such as high blood pressure requires the number of samples in the range of thousands and above. For example, a genetic study of high blood pressure conducted by a team of researchers in Maryland (USA) analyzed data from 1,017 subjects. Even with such a large number of subjects, they report that their study results require more detailed follow-up.
In fact, studies that use hundreds of thousands of subjects are far from conclusive results. For example, a study on high blood pressure published in 1999 analyzed data from a total of over 200,000 subjects. Through collaboration between research teams in China and the United States, this study of high blood pressure successfully identified the causes of high blood pressure from a genetic point of view. However, the results of the study come with more questions than the mysteries that were successfully unraveled.
In addition, readers should be reminded that correlation does not mean causation. For example, when you are told that scientists found a link between eating habits of beef and lamb and the probability of colorectal cancer, scientists do not mean that beef and lamb are the main cause.
What is being conveyed here is that scientists may think that beef and lamb are potentially contributing to the increase in those cancer cases. There may also be other contributing factors that act simultaneously such as smoking, junk food, etc.
In conclusion, we hope that the tips and advice we provide can be a guide when you browse the website. We strongly encourage our readers to be careful when reading and digesting articles related to science. Hopefully useful!