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Jon Copley
@expeditionlog
, 15 tweets, 8 min read Read on Twitter
Today’s media coverage of fruit juice/cancer offers a chance to see how well outlets follow guidelines for responsible reporting of risk…

(e.g. drawn up by scientists & journalists: royalsociety.org/-/media/Royal_…)

…so wearing my #scicom hat, here’s a /thread:
What matters is reporting of relative AND absolute risk, ideally with equal clarity & prominence.

Relative risk: X doubles the risk of Y (scary?)

But is that increase from 1 in ten to 2 in ten (ok, scary) or 1 in a million to 2 in a million (not so scary)? (=absolute risk)
Today’s news story is a study in the BMJ, for which there was this press release:
eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2…

Relative risk is given in sentence 10; absolute risk is sort-of stated (via total number of cancer cases in the study), but you’d have to do some sums to make it as clear…
Fortunately, a @CR_UK statistician (not involved in the study) did just that:

"if 1,000 similar participants increased their daily sugary drink intake by 100ml, we’d expect the number of cancer cases to rise from 22 to 26 per 1,000 people over a five-year period"...
...in a statement made available to the press (via Science Media Centre perhaps?).

So how did outlets handle all that info available, in their coverage?
Let's start with my alma mater: @NewScientist

Their online coverage is an edit of the Press Association newswire (byline: "by New Scientist staff and Press Association").

No quantification of absolute risk in their version:
newscientist.com/article/220946…
...and the @NewScientist headline claiming "increased risk to *all* cancers" would seem to be incorrect, given that "no association was found for prostate and colorectal cancers" (as stated in the Eurekalert press release: eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2…)
No reporting of absolute risk in @TheScotsman coverage:scotsman.com/health/just-on…

...or @TheSun:
thesun.co.uk/news/9482453/s…

...or @DailyMirror:
mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/heal…
No reporting of absolute risk in @standardnews (and they get the study size wrong by an order of magnitude):
standard.co.uk/news/uk/one-gl…
It's the front page story of the printed @DailyMail, and quantification of absolute risk (thanks to the info from the @CR_UK statistician) is included on the front page, in sentences 6 and 7:
Coverage in @guardian leads with "a big study... the first substantial piece of research to find a specific association".

But there's no quantification of relative+absolute risks until around sentence 20:
theguardian.com/society/2019/j…
The @Independent does report absolute risk, thanks to the quote provided by the @CR_UK statistician.

Their article states the relative risk in sentence 2; then gives the absolute risk in sentence 21:
independent.co.uk/news/health/fr…
The @nytimes gives some quantification of absolute risk near the very top of the piece (6th sentence), *before* quantifying relative risk:
nytimes.com/2019/07/10/wel…

(also uses conditional language, and states important caveats at the top of the piece)
The @BBCNews online coverage gives clear quantification of absolute risk, early on in the piece, rather than leading with relative risk:
bbc.co.uk/news/health-48…

(and lays out the context clearly with sections of indepdendent comment, having asked a question as its headline)
So here we are, ~18 years after journalists and researchers got together to set out guidelines for responsible reporting of relative+absolute risks in press releases and coverage - and it still seems to be a very mixed bag in today's outputs.

(/end)
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Jon Copley
@expeditionlog
My book "Ask An Ocean Explorer"(*) is out in 30 days (on 21 Feb).

So for the next 30 days, I'll be sharing some of the wonders & history of exploring the deep here, in #30daysofdeep

(*<cough>available for pre-order, e.g. amazon.co.uk/Ask-Ocean-Expl…; also for Kindle, & audio book)
On this day, 59 years ago, two people reached the ocean's deepest point for the first time.

Here's a wonderful account by one of them, Don Walsh, in his own words: scientificamerican.com/article/diving…

And here's some archive newsreel footage:

#30daysofdeep 1/30
#30daysofdeep 2/30

Here's Gorringe Bank, a twin-peaked seamount near Portugal that rises from ~5 km deep to ~50 m deep, taller than Mont Blanc in the Alps. Home to >800 species, from deep-sea glass sponges to kelp.

Discovered by USS Gettysburg in 1875 under Capt Henry Gorringe.
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Jon Copley
@expeditionlog
Today being the solstice & anniversary of HMS Challenger setting out on her voyage of ocean exploration in 1872, it's a good day to reflect on some of the deep-sea discoveries of 2018.

Here are three that show how there are still surprises out there for us... (thread/)
2018 deep-sea surprise 1: deep-sea skates may use the warm waters of hydrothermal vents to incubate their egg cases, revealed in a research paper published in February, from exploration at >1.6 km deep in the Galapagos Marine Reserve

nature.com/articles/s4159… (2/6)
2018 deep-sea surprise 2: tantalising evidence that some whales might dive much deeper than thought, from seafloor marks discovered at >4 km deep in the Pacific, analysed in a paper published in August by @Leigh_Marsh @VeerleHuvenne @DanielOBJones

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.10… (3/6)
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Dr Jon Copley
@expeditionlog
Deepest dives & years:
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435m Beebe & Barton 1930
671m " 1932
923m " 1934
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3167m Piccard & Piccard 1953
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4050m Houot & Willm 1954
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10916m Piccard & Walsh 1960
11 June 1930: 435 metres

William Beebe & Otis Barton start to set new depth records, diving off Bermuda in the "bathysphere" that Barton designed ()
22 September 1932: 671 metres

Beebe & Barton return to Bermuda and set a new depth record - while broadcasting live on the radio from the bathysphere to listeners on NBC across the US and BBC in the UK.

blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2…
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@idhammer
Today I Learned

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