says Dr. Triunfol, one of the study’s authors and Humane Society International’s scientific advisor.
‘Alzheimer disease research results in over-hyped media coverage if science papers omit mice from their title. Hence the scientists call for accurate reporting of animal studies to avoid misleading the public with exaggerated news headlines.’
Over-Hyped Media Coverage
The study team found that out of the 623 papers between 2018 and 2019 in open-access journals and indexed in PubMed, 405 added ‘mice’ in the titles but 218 made no mention of mice, even though the mice were the main research subjects.
The study also showed that papers that omit mice from their titles generate twice the number of social media tweets compared to papers that do mention mice in the title (18.8 tweets against 9.7 tweets, on average).
Some examples of these media stories are “Common nutrient supplementation may hold the answers to combating Alzheimer’s disease”, “How flashing lights could treat Alzheimer’s disease” & “How Exercise Might ‘Clean’ the Alzheimer’s Brain,” among many others.
These headlines mislead people with Alzheimer’s disease and thereby creating false hope. The authors thereby necessitate the implementation of editorial policies, such as the ARRIVE guidelines (an internationally accepted checklist of recommendations to improve the reporting of research involving animals) to improve the accuracy and transparency of science media news concerning Alzheimer’s disease research.
Source: Medindia
