Mad cow media
We had an excellent example again this week of how poorly Australia's media checks it's facts.A single case of classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) was found in one Melbourne hospital patient. Wanting to be sure that cross contamination occurred, they announced that they were requesting all 1056 patients to come back for a follow-up check.
The hospital stressed very strongly and repeatedly that that classic CJD was a different disease to variant CJD, which is the human form of BSE (mad cow disease). It was stressed that Variant CJD and BSE had never been found in Australia. The media were warned by the hospital to make sure they reported this incident responsibly.
Needless to say, the airwaves were filled with the story of Mad Cow Disease for days afterwards. Naturally the hospital and the beef industry are not impressed.
Full details and thanks for the background for this story go to ABC Television's Media Watch. For anyone interested in the accuracy (or inaccuracies) of the media, then this program is a must watch. Monday nights at 8:45pm on Australia's ABC.
posted by Kevin Paine @ 9:38 pm
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