We reporters or it, in any case, often fail to anticipate the gripping stories that readers and that will quickly disappear into oblivion. Given that, maybe I should not have been surprised that a story that I live out of the printing press in the lull between Christmas and New Year has generated more comments than any other, I ' wrote.
The piece, which appeared online with the title "the simple calculation which is why you can (or not) a cancer" (and in the section of the journal News with the title "bad luck Cancer . "), describes an article published in the edition of January 2 science as I and many other reporters explained, the study suggested that" bad luck "single mutations - RANDOM accumulate in stem cells healthy may account for about two thirds of cancers than the risk conferred by environmental and genetic factors combined. A message was that some cancers could not be avoided and detect early was key to fight .
the players wasted little time skewer the authors, mathematician Cristian Tomasetti and geneticist at Johns Hopkins University's Bert Vogelstein cancer in Baltimore, Maryland Their statistics were defective, some argued. they included many rare cancers and left several more common. Earlier today, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Organization of cancer arm of health, put on a press release stating that unusual "strongly disagree" with the report. The agency said that "almost half of all cases of cancer worldwide can be avoided." He accused the authors push for early detection "if misinterpreted ... could have serious negative consequences both cancer research and perspectives of public health. "
Reporters, if anything, do less well." please journalists, get a clue before you write about science, "argued an angry column in the Guardian , co-written by an evolutionary biologist who goes by the Twitter handle and @GrrlScientist statistician Bob O'Hara at the biodiversity and climate research Centre in Frankfurt, Germany
given the fury I wondered :. was I wrong? Had the authors? Answering these seemingly simple questions have proven surprisingly difficult, exposing the challenges that come with scientific communication and the desire to scientific authors and journalists in order to streamline the story they are trying to say.
I started with my own story, working behind the science that spawned it. I wrote that the theory of random mutations in stem cells, "says two-thirds of all cancers." Immediately, I knew that I had written some of this sloppily, to put it generously: The study did not include all cancers. In fact, he did not include two of the most common, prostate and breast cancer, because the authors were not able to identify the size of the stem cell compartment or frequency of stem cell divisions in the tissues . Although my piece then recorded the number of cancers in the study, I pointed out the earlier omissions.
Encore, was "two-thirds" referring to the number of cases of the study include cancers, like me and other journalists had suggested or something else? Journalists like figures that shorten a study at a ball point. I immediately asked if this finding two thirds could be such a gem. Tomasetti had explained to me in a long interview that "if you go to the American Cancer Society website and check what causes cancer, you will find a list of things either inherited or environmental. We say two thirds is not one of them. "I ran the text of my" two-thirds "phrase by him before publication and he had no objection (there were other details).
Last week we talked again. Tomasetti had received over 0 emails. Parents of children who were cancer deaths were grateful that it could have happened entirely by chance, suggesting that there was nothing they could have done. biologists and statisticians disputed its findings or simply surprised that so many cancer could be random.
"We do not claim that two-thirds of cancer cases are due to bad luck," Tomasetti said softly. what the study argued, he explained, is that two-thirds of the variation in cancer rates in different tissues can be explained by random bad luck (a point made by others). what meant, I wondered? Tomasetti, chatting by phone, had me draw graphs to help me understand. At the end of the day, I'm still not sure I grasp the essence.
Tomasetti was friendly. "There are many scientists who need clarification" on the document, he said, with some statisticians. He was preparing a technical report with additional details, and Johns Hopkins had just put a press release explainer. "Honestly, I feel and what I say to the BBC, and you can definitely quote me on this-general, reporters who have interacted with made us a very honest and sincere effort to be as accurate as possible. "
it was only after several hours of interviews that I finally understood the figure of two thirds. Some fabrics are overwhelmed by the cancer more easily than others, and accumulating mutations in stem cells explained two-thirds of this variability, Tomasetti and Vogelstein had concluded. It was my "aha" moment, and it came too late, after my initial deadline.
I contacted some of the criticism. "I just read your article, and I do not think it falls into the wrong category (at worst, it bypasses the lip without dropping in)" wrote O'Hara, author of Guardian room, in an e-mail to confuse me further, because I had not goofed up? By phone, he explained that one of his quibbles was the word "luck" -present in the summary document, emphasized by the authors, and highlighted in almost every news story. He looked sexy, but O'Hara felt it was inaccurate, because virtually all cancers is a product of chance in a sense.
"It is too easy to blame the media," said David Spiegelhalter, a biostatistician at the University of Cambridge in the UK, who blogged about the story. ( "Your article is fine," he assured me.) In this case, he felt, "most of the coverage is very reasonable, most cases of cancer are due to chance."
However, mistakes were made along the way, which has not surprised. "this is very difficult things," said Spiegelhalter. "I feel for you. It's one of those things that is so superficially simple, yet superficial simplicity is not correct. "
The authors of the paper, many felt, also were guilty of trying too hard to develop a simple message. The document included a diagram visually arresting splitting cancers in green and blue categories. the green cancers were "mainly due" to mutations suggesting random-write the authors, they were less likely to be prevented by changes in behavior or diet. However, this category included cancer and melanoma of the esophagus, both of which are considered to have close links with environmental factors such as excessive alcohol consumption and exposure sun, respectively.
Melanoma sitting just a bit inside the green border, but still, it was green, which left many readers exercised. "They have ignored some of the basic lifestyle factors," said Graham Colditz, a specialist in cancer prevention at the University of Washington in St. Louis. "Obviously, they had good intentions," said Anne McTiernan, a physician and epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. But, she continued, the authors assume that a correlation exists between the number of divisions of stem cells and cancer risk was meant one behind the other, something their data could not prove. Tomasetti agreed that this is correct, but noted that "all the biology that we have on this subject supports" the idea that the accumulation of random mutations in healthy cells can trigger cancer. Some scientists have argued that the graphic carried a missive for the prevention, with huge risk differentials between cancer caused by environmental or genetic, such as lung cancer in smokers or head and neck related to human papillomavirus and cancer at the same site without obvious cause.
The shades were many. Although they quibble over the details, most would agree that random mutations play a real role in cancer - but for many other things. Despite the fury, this common ground is shared by the two authors of the paper and its critics. "This is a really fascinating pattern they observed, but it is a small message," said Timothy Rebbeck, a specialist in cancer prevention at the University of Pennsylvania. "It does not exclude the ability to prevent and treat cancer. It does not exclude our need to better understand the causes of cancer" bottom line of the paper was not simple, but the message was for me. The science is complex, and people care deeply about the biology of diseases that affect their families and themselves. Distillation history-with space constraints, with a clear desire to write that will hold readers' attention and help them understand-has risks for scientists and for journalists. They are the ones that I hope will never forget, even if I wrong now and again
Revised 2:53 p.m., 01.14.15 :. This story has been revised to remove references to unpublished letters to science.
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