{"id":320,"date":"2009-12-09T12:02:08","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T12:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/12\/09\/on_public_relations\/"},"modified":"2009-12-09T12:02:08","modified_gmt":"2009-12-09T12:02:08","slug":"on_public_relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/12\/09\/on_public_relations\/","title":{"rendered":"On Public Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regular listeners will remember the Science Online London gathering back in August. The day before, Mendeley hosted a pre-conference ‘fringe’ event, organized by Jenny. It turned out to be quite a wild evening, and there is video evidence of shenanigans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nOne thing I remember clearly (some of you might be surprised I remember anything<\/em> from that evening, but anyway) is David Colquhoun<\/a> getting a tad rabid about PR. The gist was that science doesn’t need PR, it’s a waste of time and money; I don’t remember him saying explicitly PR people are professional liars but that was the impression I came away with. <\/p>\n

\nI thought that was bollocks, and I still do.<\/p>\n

\nPR is necessary not simply because scientists like to eat, and therefore need to be funded, and therefore need to convince various bodies (and by extension the people who influence those bodies) to give them money (and I want to talk a little about about ‘justification’ of research in another post) but also because there are crucial social and public health aspects of what we do. We don’t just have to convince the wider community that a particular piece of research is ‘correct’, but we need to demonstrate–somehow–that it directly affects their health (or their wallet, or whatever).<\/p>\n

\nI’m reminded of this because a friend of mine sent me a link<\/a> via Facebook last week, saying<\/p>\n

\nSome (including me) would argue that the greatest battles against illness and suffering should be fought on the PR\/HR front, rather than purely in the arena of science. You, O Great Stream Feeder in the Gyre of Science Publication, may well have already seen this: RT David McCandless RT @GreatDismal: Emotional Epidemiology Of H1N1\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThe article is from a medical doctor<\/a> (or possibly here<\/a>), and describes the reactions, preconceptions and attitudes of visitors to her clinic in the face of the H1N1 epidemic; or, as she describes it, Emotional Epidemiology<\/a>. In brief, her patients at first demanded a vaccine against H1N1 (despite not wanting the seasonal jab…) and then, when the vaccine became available, refused<\/em> it.<\/p>\n

\nIt certainly isn’t related to logic or facts, since few new medical data became available during this period. It seems to reflect a sort of psychological contagion of myth and suspicion.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nAnother report last week backs up my claim. The Daily Express<\/em> reported that taking aspirin could “significantly reduce” age-related macular degeneration. Sounds great. But let’s see what the NHS has to say<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nThis is a well-designed and well-conducted study, the results of which have been incorrectly reported in the press. This study found that low-dose aspirin had no effect in preventing age-related macular degeneration, a common cause of sight loss in the elderly.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nFar from being a significant reduction, the authors of the reported (large, double-blind) randomized controlled trial took pains to stress that there is no benefit<\/a>. Indeed,<\/p>\n

\nThere are risks associated with taking daily or alternate-day aspirin, which should be weighed against the benefits. Elderly people, to whom this research will be most relevant, are most at risk of gastric irritation if they regularly use aspirin.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nWhat’s going on, here?<\/p>\n

\nIn both cases, it’s a failure of PR. It’s not simply a matter of education. It’s a matter of getting things right, and getting that information out there, to the public–via the newspapers or schools or physicians in surgeries. Just as with anthropogenic global warming there is no (serious) debate about the science<\/em>; it’s a matter of PR. And I know it’s difficult. I have no idea who Jo Willey is (apart from Health Correspondent<\/a> for the Daily Trainwreck<\/em>), but I would love to see the press release that she read. Because I also know that they are difficult to get right. On Monday I had to completely re-write a release that we were about to publish because the person who produced the copy got the message of the research completely wrong.<\/p>\n

\nPR is necessary. And it’s hard<\/em>; perhaps even harder than the science.<\/p>\n


\nChristen, W., Glynn, R., Chew, E., & Buring, J. (2009). Low-Dose Aspirin and Medical Record\u2013Confirmed Age-related Macular Degeneration in a Randomized Trial of Women Ophthalmology, 116<\/span> (12), 2386-2392 DOI: 10.1016\/j.ophtha.2009.05.031<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"ResearchBlogging.org\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular listeners will remember the Science Online London gathering back in August. The day before, Mendeley hosted a pre-conference ‘fringe’ event, organized by Jenny. It turned out to be quite a wild evening, and there is video evidence of shenanigans. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}