This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (4)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

The Responsibility of the Media, Scientists, and Clinicians

Victor Cohn

JAMA. 1996;276(23):1917-1918.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

"IN LIGHT of the available scientific evidence on vaccines, the question for the media is how to report rare adverse events without distorting the public's perceptions of the true risk."¹ So ask Freed and colleagues writing in this issue of THE JOURNAL about the overreporting or misguided reporting of actual or feared reactions to vaccines, reporting that may discourage essential immunizations of children.

The authors call on the media to report responsibly. The question, of course, is "how to report responsibly," and it is not a question for the media alone. It is also one for those who develop, manufacture, promote, and regulate vaccines, including the clinicians who give the doses or the injections.

Do the media sometimes report irresponsibly on vaccines, without perspective? Yes.

Do the media sometimes point out the merits of vaccination, the rarity of adverse events, and the unreliability of scattered cases and anecdotes? The . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Harvard School of Public Health, Center for Health Communication, Boston, Mass.

Footnotes
Corresponding author: Victor Cohn, 500 23 St NW, B-301, Washington, DC 20037.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?