Health

Cigarette "Taste Test" Snuffed Out

Australia's 1992 Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act prohibited most forms of tobacco advertising, making it more difficult for tobacco companies to promote their products. Despite the law, an Australian market-research firm called Feedback Plus was found to be distributing free cigarettes in a program it said was a "taste-testing survey" being carried out as part of a "marketing research" program.

No

Colorado's Casino Towns Gamble on Loose Interpretation of Smoking Ban

Smoking in Colorado's casinos due to end Jan. 1As Colorado prepares to extend its state law eliminating secondhand smoke in workplaces to include casinos as of January 1, 2008, the state's mountain gambling towns have been hard at work getting ready for the change.

No

Drug Ties Lead to "Wishful Conclusions"

"Meta-analyses," or reviews of several studies' worth of data on a single drug, influence patient care and healthcare policy. Increasingly, the people carrying out these meta-analyses have financial ties to drug companies. So researchers at Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco set out "to determine whether financial ties to one drug company are associated with favourable results or conclusions in meta-analyses on antihypertensive drugs," which are taken to lower blood pressure.

No

The Fakest Time of the Year: The 2007 Falsies Awards

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the year that the Falsies Awards have truly arrived!

Groucho maskHere at the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), we've dearly treasured our Falsies since we gave the first awards out in 2004. After 12 months of reporting on the cynical, manipulative and just plain anti-democratic pollution of our information environment, we love adding an extra dash of humor to our work. But this year's Falsies Awards are extra super special.

Columbus Discovers Local Fake News

Emmy award-winning television reporter Andrea Cambern "might be the most trusted news anchor in Columbus," Ohio, writes Steph Greegor. "So she's believable when she appears in reports reinforcing the notion that the Ohio State University Medical Center is a fine facility. What those clips don't mention is that Ohio State paid Channel 10 for them.

No

Pages

Subscribe to Health