title: Why most biomedical findings echoed by newspapers turn out to be false: the case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Because positive biomedical observations are more often published than those reporting no effect, initial observations are often refuted or attenuated by subsequent studies.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether newspapers preferentially report on initial findings and whether they also report on subsequent studies.
  
  
  METHODS
  We focused on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using Factiva and PubMed databases, we identified 47 scientific publications on ADHD published in the 1990s and soon echoed by 347 newspapers articles. We selected the ten most echoed publications and collected all their relevant subsequent studies until 2011. We checked whether findings reported in each "top 10" publication were consistent with previous and subsequent observations. We also compared the newspaper coverage of the "top 10" publications to that of their related scientific studies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seven of the "top 10" publications were initial studies and the conclusions in six of them were either refuted or strongly attenuated subsequently. The seventh was not confirmed or refuted, but its main conclusion appears unlikely. Among the three "top 10" that were not initial studies, two were confirmed subsequently and the third was attenuated. The newspaper coverage of the "top 10" publications (223 articles) was much larger than that of the 67 related studies (57 articles). Moreover, only one of the latter newspaper articles reported that the corresponding "top 10" finding had been attenuated. The average impact factor of the scientific journals publishing studies echoed by newspapers (17.1 n = 56) was higher (p<0.0001) than that corresponding to related publications that were not echoed (6.4 n = 56).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Because newspapers preferentially echo initial ADHD findings appearing in prominent journals, they report on uncertain findings that are often refuted or attenuated by subsequent studies. If this media reporting bias generalizes to health sciences, it represents a major cause of distortion in health science communication.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France. francois.gonon@u-bordeaux2.fr
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gonon
authors.forename: Jan-Pieter
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Konsman
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Boraud
mesh_terms: D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*; D035843:Biomedical Research; D003146:Communications Media; D050483:Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D009524:Newspapers as Topic; D050638:Receptors, Dopamine D4 / Q000235:genetics; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000473:pathology; D014495:Universities
chemical_list: C493599:DRD4 protein, human; D050483:Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D050638:Receptors, Dopamine D4