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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM NOVEMBER 16, 2009
The news media's honeymoon with Barack Obama is over. The President's diplomatic tour of the major powers of eastern Asia made a stop in Shanghai to showcase his pitch for political freedoms in the People's Republic of China. Each network had its White House correspondent follow along; yet none chose Obama's town hall meeting with university students for its lead. Instead breast cancer screening was the unanimous choice for Story of the Day. Each newscast brought in its in-house physician to consult on a recommendation in the Annals of Internal Medicine by the Preventive Services Taskforce that many mammograms, especially for fortysomething women, are unnecessary. NBC launched its corporatewide Green is Universal week by anchoring its newscast from Los Angeles.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR NOVEMBER 16, 2009: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
WOMEN’S BREASTS OVERSHADOW OBAMA’S DIPLOMACY The news media's honeymoon with Barack Obama is over. The President's diplomatic tour of the major powers of eastern Asia made a stop in Shanghai to showcase his pitch for political freedoms in the People's Republic of China. Each network had its White House correspondent follow along; yet none chose Obama's town hall meeting with university students for its lead. Instead breast cancer screening was the unanimous choice for Story of the Day. Each newscast brought in its in-house physician to consult on a recommendation in the Annals of Internal Medicine by the Preventive Services Taskforce that many mammograms, especially for fortysomething women, are unnecessary. NBC launched its corporatewide Green is Universal week by anchoring its newscast from Los Angeles.
All three newscasts covered the basic details of the PSTF recommendations: those women who are not at high risk of breast cancer should undergo mammography every other year starting at age 50 until their mid-seventies; hitherto annual mammography had been recommended starting at age 40. The tissue in the breasts of women in their 40s is not suitable, NBC's in-house physician Nancy Snyderman explained: "Denser breasts make screening more unreliable. That could mean more false positives, which could lead to more tests, higher costs and more anxiety for the patient."
NBC anchor Brian Williams, who was in Los Angeles, invited Susan Love into the studio to assess the panel's findings. Love, "one of the foremost experts in this field," pointed out that a consensus of her colleagues recommended age 50 as the starting point back in 1997: "There was a big outcry. Congress passed a nonbinding resolution and told the National Cancer Institute to come up with better guidelines. So these were never based on science." Love added that mammography would not be banned by fortysomethings: "It is not that we are trying to deprive them from their right to be irradiated," she quipped sarcastically. "It is not as good at actually saving lives as it is later in life."
NBC anchor Williams inaccurately hyped the importance of the story by calling breast cancer "the second leading cause of death in this country." Not true--he meant cancers of all kinds. CBS anchor Katie Couric was considerably calmer, citing a breast cancer death toll of 40,000 annually. ABC anchor Charles Gibson noted the taskforce's claim that the current mammography guidelines do save lives. He asked his in-house physician Timothy Johnson whether the benefit of preventing unnecessary treatments and anxiety from false positives was worth the risk of death from undetected tumors. "I was surprised that some prominent people, including Susan Love who is probably the best known cancer researcher in this country, agreed with the new guidelines."
What is this Preventive Services Taskforce? ABC's John McKenzie called them "healthcare professionals considered among the best at analyzing medical data." NBC's Snyderman said they were "researchers at some of the most highly regarded institutions in the United States." CBS' Jennifer Ashton called it "a respected panel of government medical experts." On the other hand, the American Cancer Society "is refusing to go along with the new recommendations," ABC's McKenzie pointed out.
JENNIFER ASHTON’S GIGANTIC CLINIC Each mammogram costs $125 on average, noted Dr Jennifer Ashton, CBS' in-house physician. She recited statistics to demonstrate how mammography is more suitable for older women. For low-risk women in their sixties, one lethal tumor is found and treated for every 377 mammograms, which works out at $47K per life saved; in their fifties the ratio is 1-in-1,339 or $167K; for fortysomethings it is 1-in-1,904 or $238K--without even counting the cost of the follow-up biopsies to discount false positives. Then Dr Ashton undercut her reporting with an unbelievable anecdote: "As a doctor who has many young women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer by a screening mammogram I think I am going to have a hard time recommending that they do not get screened."
Many? How many? For the sake of argument, let us say that Ashton's many means two dozen fortysomething patients. To have treated that many, she would have had to have prescribed mammography for more than 45,000 women in their forties--which would make her practice enormous, bigger than even Susan Love's. Far too big for her to find the time for a sideline as doctor on television too.
BAD PHARMA Elsewhere in the medical-industrial complex, ABC delivered negative publicity for Pfizer and CBS offered bad news for Merck. CBS' senior in-house physician Jon LaPook told us about a clinical trial of Niacin, otherwise known as Vitamin B. The vitamin manufacturer stacked its bargain pills up against Merck's high-priced Zetia to test which was better at reducing plaque in the arteries of heart patients. While Zetia was better at lowering cholesterol, the vitamin supplement came out ahead at clearing arteries. Researchers are waiting for results of a "much larger trial."
ABC's Bill Weir traveled to New London. The Connecticut town has subsidized 40% of Pfizer's property taxes for the past decade and famously used its powers of eminent domain to evict a middle class neighborhood to make way for "a five star hotel, condos and an office park" for the pharmaceutical firm. Those evictions were upheld by the Supreme Court back in 2005. The upshot, Weir told us, is that Pfizer's ten-year abatement has now lapsed. It is closing its New London offices and has abandoned the development. The cleared land "may be the most symbolic weed-choked lot in America."
GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA ABC's Jake Tapper had fun at the town hall meeting in Shanghai where President Barack Obama spoke in favor of participatory democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of worship, online social networking and an Internet free of censorship. "Should China be open about that sort of thing?" Tapper asked one student. "Every government has its own reasons to do what they are doing," came the halting reply. "I do not want to get you into trouble," Tapper smiled. "OK." A Communist Party handler told Tapper that he could talk…but could not interview.
CBS' Chip Reid heard Obama's criticism of online censorship--the so-called Great Firewall of China--and described its tone as "a polite lecture." NBC's Savannah Guthrie saw him "gently prod" the People's Republic: "Chinese television ignored the live event, later running short clips." CBS' Reid noted that the town hall meeting aired on a single channel in Shanghai and a transcript was later posted on a government Website. "If that is a moral victory for the President he well probably savor it because otherwise the visit to China is expected to bring more disappointment than success."
WAR CRIMES, KILLING SPREES, SUPERMAX LOCK-UPS ABC's Brian Ross filed a follow-up Investigates feature into Nidal Hasan, the accused murderer of Fort Hood soldiers. Ross called Hasan "a deeply conflicted man, a devout Moslem who enjoyed strip clubs and beer" and a psychiatrist who tried to use his own patients' words against them. "Federal investigators say he wanted to turn in his own soldier patients for what he considered their admission, during counseling, to war crimes." Ross also tracked down Anwar al-Awlaki, the exiled Moslem preacher who corresponded with Hasan via e-mail. Ross showed us the Website of the al-Wasatiyyah Foundation where al-Awlaki streams his online sermons. The Yemen-based imam is regarded by unidentified "US officials," Ross told us, as an al-Qaeda recruiter.
NBC's Kevin Tibbles took us to rural northwestern Illinois where the Thomson Correctional Center, built in 2001, "has been dubbed the ghost prison." Right now it houses just 150 minimum security inmates, 10% of capacity. Add a new perimeter fence and extra staff and Thomson could become maximum enough to detain suspected terrorists. This Big House was toured by bureaucrats from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security. They might use Thomson to accommodate inmates currently incarcerated in the brig at the USNavy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
CONNECTICUT’S FICTIONAL 42ND In an attempt at fiscal transparency, Barack Obama's White House has built recovery.gov, an $18m Website to track where jobs have been saved or created as a result of $787bn in federal deficit spending. ABC's Jonathan Karl checked out a feature that allows data to be searched "by state, by ZIP code and by Congressional district." He found "millions of dollars spent and jobs created in places that do not exist" like Arizona's 15th CD, Connecticut's 42nd CD--and districts in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Mariana Islands that are not even represented in Congress.
ANDREA WAS NOT SLIMED, NICOLLE DID NOT LULL When Sarah Palin wrote about being covered by the television networks in Going Rogue, her memoir of her Campaign 2008 Vice-Presidential run, of course the networks' correspondents were going to cover the story. NBC's Andrea Mitchell zeroed in on the fishing trip she took with Palin this past summer. Palin wanted to see Mitchell and her colleagues "banging around in a skiff, stuck in the mud, trying to pull themselves back over the bow." But it was a peaceful sunny day: "Dang it! None of them got slimed."
CBS' Jeff Greenfield examined Palin's story of being "lulled into a damaging series of interviews with Katie Couric." According to Going Rogue, Palin aide Nicolle Wallace--who worked at CBS News as a political consultant before joining John McCain--"convinced her to do the interview, assuring her it would be favorable." Greenfield contacted Wallace: "None of the conversations Palin quotes in the book ever took place."
GREEN FLAT SCREENS To kick off NBC's corporatewide Green is Universal eco-effort, Lee Cowan filed an Our Planet feature on flat-screen television sets. He cited the astonishing California statistic that flat screens account for 10% of the state's household electricity usage. Accordingly the state has ordered that sets sold in 2013 must consume 50% less electricity than now. The Consumer Electronics Association calls the rule "arbitrary" and insists that "forcing manufacturers to meet these energy guidelines will only stifle innovation." Cowan checked in with VIZIO: "That will not be a problem. Most of its models already meet the standards."
JUMBO’S PEANUTS Check out the den in Anthony Toth's apartment in Los Angeles. He has remodeled his lounge as a replica of a first class cabin of a Pan Am Clipper, circa 1979. There is a jumbo jet galley and the Boeing 747's spiral staircase to the upper deck. Steve Hartman showed us on CBS' Assignment America. Its seats have original fabric with flight magazines and drinks tumblers. Everything is original except the peanuts. "There already is a 30-year-old nut in the cabin."
All three newscasts covered the basic details of the PSTF recommendations: those women who are not at high risk of breast cancer should undergo mammography every other year starting at age 50 until their mid-seventies; hitherto annual mammography had been recommended starting at age 40. The tissue in the breasts of women in their 40s is not suitable, NBC's in-house physician Nancy Snyderman explained: "Denser breasts make screening more unreliable. That could mean more false positives, which could lead to more tests, higher costs and more anxiety for the patient."
NBC anchor Brian Williams, who was in Los Angeles, invited Susan Love into the studio to assess the panel's findings. Love, "one of the foremost experts in this field," pointed out that a consensus of her colleagues recommended age 50 as the starting point back in 1997: "There was a big outcry. Congress passed a nonbinding resolution and told the National Cancer Institute to come up with better guidelines. So these were never based on science." Love added that mammography would not be banned by fortysomethings: "It is not that we are trying to deprive them from their right to be irradiated," she quipped sarcastically. "It is not as good at actually saving lives as it is later in life."
NBC anchor Williams inaccurately hyped the importance of the story by calling breast cancer "the second leading cause of death in this country." Not true--he meant cancers of all kinds. CBS anchor Katie Couric was considerably calmer, citing a breast cancer death toll of 40,000 annually. ABC anchor Charles Gibson noted the taskforce's claim that the current mammography guidelines do save lives. He asked his in-house physician Timothy Johnson whether the benefit of preventing unnecessary treatments and anxiety from false positives was worth the risk of death from undetected tumors. "I was surprised that some prominent people, including Susan Love who is probably the best known cancer researcher in this country, agreed with the new guidelines."
What is this Preventive Services Taskforce? ABC's John McKenzie called them "healthcare professionals considered among the best at analyzing medical data." NBC's Snyderman said they were "researchers at some of the most highly regarded institutions in the United States." CBS' Jennifer Ashton called it "a respected panel of government medical experts." On the other hand, the American Cancer Society "is refusing to go along with the new recommendations," ABC's McKenzie pointed out.
JENNIFER ASHTON’S GIGANTIC CLINIC Each mammogram costs $125 on average, noted Dr Jennifer Ashton, CBS' in-house physician. She recited statistics to demonstrate how mammography is more suitable for older women. For low-risk women in their sixties, one lethal tumor is found and treated for every 377 mammograms, which works out at $47K per life saved; in their fifties the ratio is 1-in-1,339 or $167K; for fortysomethings it is 1-in-1,904 or $238K--without even counting the cost of the follow-up biopsies to discount false positives. Then Dr Ashton undercut her reporting with an unbelievable anecdote: "As a doctor who has many young women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer by a screening mammogram I think I am going to have a hard time recommending that they do not get screened."
Many? How many? For the sake of argument, let us say that Ashton's many means two dozen fortysomething patients. To have treated that many, she would have had to have prescribed mammography for more than 45,000 women in their forties--which would make her practice enormous, bigger than even Susan Love's. Far too big for her to find the time for a sideline as doctor on television too.
BAD PHARMA Elsewhere in the medical-industrial complex, ABC delivered negative publicity for Pfizer and CBS offered bad news for Merck. CBS' senior in-house physician Jon LaPook told us about a clinical trial of Niacin, otherwise known as Vitamin B. The vitamin manufacturer stacked its bargain pills up against Merck's high-priced Zetia to test which was better at reducing plaque in the arteries of heart patients. While Zetia was better at lowering cholesterol, the vitamin supplement came out ahead at clearing arteries. Researchers are waiting for results of a "much larger trial."
ABC's Bill Weir traveled to New London. The Connecticut town has subsidized 40% of Pfizer's property taxes for the past decade and famously used its powers of eminent domain to evict a middle class neighborhood to make way for "a five star hotel, condos and an office park" for the pharmaceutical firm. Those evictions were upheld by the Supreme Court back in 2005. The upshot, Weir told us, is that Pfizer's ten-year abatement has now lapsed. It is closing its New London offices and has abandoned the development. The cleared land "may be the most symbolic weed-choked lot in America."
GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA ABC's Jake Tapper had fun at the town hall meeting in Shanghai where President Barack Obama spoke in favor of participatory democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of worship, online social networking and an Internet free of censorship. "Should China be open about that sort of thing?" Tapper asked one student. "Every government has its own reasons to do what they are doing," came the halting reply. "I do not want to get you into trouble," Tapper smiled. "OK." A Communist Party handler told Tapper that he could talk…but could not interview.
CBS' Chip Reid heard Obama's criticism of online censorship--the so-called Great Firewall of China--and described its tone as "a polite lecture." NBC's Savannah Guthrie saw him "gently prod" the People's Republic: "Chinese television ignored the live event, later running short clips." CBS' Reid noted that the town hall meeting aired on a single channel in Shanghai and a transcript was later posted on a government Website. "If that is a moral victory for the President he well probably savor it because otherwise the visit to China is expected to bring more disappointment than success."
WAR CRIMES, KILLING SPREES, SUPERMAX LOCK-UPS ABC's Brian Ross filed a follow-up Investigates feature into Nidal Hasan, the accused murderer of Fort Hood soldiers. Ross called Hasan "a deeply conflicted man, a devout Moslem who enjoyed strip clubs and beer" and a psychiatrist who tried to use his own patients' words against them. "Federal investigators say he wanted to turn in his own soldier patients for what he considered their admission, during counseling, to war crimes." Ross also tracked down Anwar al-Awlaki, the exiled Moslem preacher who corresponded with Hasan via e-mail. Ross showed us the Website of the al-Wasatiyyah Foundation where al-Awlaki streams his online sermons. The Yemen-based imam is regarded by unidentified "US officials," Ross told us, as an al-Qaeda recruiter.
NBC's Kevin Tibbles took us to rural northwestern Illinois where the Thomson Correctional Center, built in 2001, "has been dubbed the ghost prison." Right now it houses just 150 minimum security inmates, 10% of capacity. Add a new perimeter fence and extra staff and Thomson could become maximum enough to detain suspected terrorists. This Big House was toured by bureaucrats from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security. They might use Thomson to accommodate inmates currently incarcerated in the brig at the USNavy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
CONNECTICUT’S FICTIONAL 42ND In an attempt at fiscal transparency, Barack Obama's White House has built recovery.gov, an $18m Website to track where jobs have been saved or created as a result of $787bn in federal deficit spending. ABC's Jonathan Karl checked out a feature that allows data to be searched "by state, by ZIP code and by Congressional district." He found "millions of dollars spent and jobs created in places that do not exist" like Arizona's 15th CD, Connecticut's 42nd CD--and districts in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Mariana Islands that are not even represented in Congress.
ANDREA WAS NOT SLIMED, NICOLLE DID NOT LULL When Sarah Palin wrote about being covered by the television networks in Going Rogue, her memoir of her Campaign 2008 Vice-Presidential run, of course the networks' correspondents were going to cover the story. NBC's Andrea Mitchell zeroed in on the fishing trip she took with Palin this past summer. Palin wanted to see Mitchell and her colleagues "banging around in a skiff, stuck in the mud, trying to pull themselves back over the bow." But it was a peaceful sunny day: "Dang it! None of them got slimed."
CBS' Jeff Greenfield examined Palin's story of being "lulled into a damaging series of interviews with Katie Couric." According to Going Rogue, Palin aide Nicolle Wallace--who worked at CBS News as a political consultant before joining John McCain--"convinced her to do the interview, assuring her it would be favorable." Greenfield contacted Wallace: "None of the conversations Palin quotes in the book ever took place."
GREEN FLAT SCREENS To kick off NBC's corporatewide Green is Universal eco-effort, Lee Cowan filed an Our Planet feature on flat-screen television sets. He cited the astonishing California statistic that flat screens account for 10% of the state's household electricity usage. Accordingly the state has ordered that sets sold in 2013 must consume 50% less electricity than now. The Consumer Electronics Association calls the rule "arbitrary" and insists that "forcing manufacturers to meet these energy guidelines will only stifle innovation." Cowan checked in with VIZIO: "That will not be a problem. Most of its models already meet the standards."
JUMBO’S PEANUTS Check out the den in Anthony Toth's apartment in Los Angeles. He has remodeled his lounge as a replica of a first class cabin of a Pan Am Clipper, circa 1979. There is a jumbo jet galley and the Boeing 747's spiral staircase to the upper deck. Steve Hartman showed us on CBS' Assignment America. Its seats have original fabric with flight magazines and drinks tumblers. Everything is original except the peanuts. "There already is a 30-year-old nut in the cabin."
