Don’t Drink the Water!

So says the media.

In this blog I plan to address mainstream medical news articles you might hear about or find interesting.  I’ll give you my own opinion and interpretation of the info, with an obvious interest in figuring out whether there’s relevant info in the article relating to what this site is all about:  trying to improve your odds of living a long, healthy life. 

It turns out the media is not very good at accurately presenting medical information for the most part.  What they generally are good at is using a bit of medical information, or even misinformation, to generate a compelling or sensationalistic story.  Now I’m not saying it’s always intentional; often I’m sure the media simply misunderstands or misses the point of what they’re trying to report on.  The frequency with which the media presents medical information in a misleading way however is frightening to me, since it makes me wonder how many other media reports on topics other than medicine that I’m reading are full of misinformation and I’m simply too ignorant to recognize it.

Here’s one from today.  An article from the AP regarding minute, trace amounts of prescription drugs which are detectable in some water supplies.  Sounds pretty scary, right?  I mean, after all, you don’t want to be taking any prescription drugs unless you really need them and they’re prescribed and monitored by your doctor, particularly not if they’re unknowingly mixed into your tap water.  The article focuses on the potential for possible toxic long-term effects on humans due to decades of such exposure. (more…)