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January
2002
Media and Messages
Hundreds of
postal workers in Washington who had been exposed to anthrax decided
last month that the side effects of their antibiotics were unpleasant.
So they stopped taking them before the prescribed course had run
out, and some decided to meditate rather than medicate.
One postal worker declared, "It's now time
to trust in God. I figure He has a better answer than CDC has. He's
kept me."
Faith can be an important part of one's overall
health, but most people still want some temporal answers from the
CDC to questions about bioterrorism, and they want it now.
So far the government hasn't inspired a great deal
of faith in this crisis, and the public health system is in a well-documented
shambles. Independent scientists not affiliated with federal, state
or local governments are confused as well.
Ask a scientist, ask a health policy wonk, ask
your own doctor: "Where do you get your information on the
risks and cures for bioterrorism?"
The answer is going to be, "from the news
media" -- and that may not be a bad thing at all.
If the government can't be trusted, if the public
health system is inadequate, if doctors don't know the latest, then
perhaps an institution based on a competitive, free-market impulse
to distribute information fast and correctly is the new medium of
trust for public health.
Yes, the "media" as a true mediator --
filling an information vacuum and rapidly analyzing conflicting
claims. If 24/7 cable TV coverage can bring out the sensationalist
worst and occasionally interview false experts, it also has the
capacity to reach large audiences in real time to present accurate
public health information and, equally important, to correct wrong
information.
Likewise, the role of newspapers has always been
vital in transferring scientific information to practitioners who
would rather read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or the
local daily than their own discipline's journals.
To some editors,
public health won't be an issue unless people are dying in the streets,
But most are beginning to see, thanks in part to the assault on
their own mailrooms, that the issue is as important as war or the
economy. Politicians, generals and the Federal Reserve avail themselves
of the news media to frame issues and form consensus. It is no less
important for the nation's medical leadership to do the same.
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