When it comes to human health, recent studies have suggested that not only the respiratory and cardiovascular systems are affected by air pollution, but the central nervous system could be affected as well. One disease of particular interest and relevance is dementia, in particular Alzheimer's Disease and Vascular Dementia, mainly because of the emotional and physical toll takes on patients and their families, and incidence is expected to triple in the next 40 years.
This Yahoo! Finance Article tells us all about how a longterm (15 years) study was realised in Umea, Sweden where they related traffic-related air pollution to dementia incidences, to which they provided the following scientific article as their main resource: Environmental Health Perspective Article.
Even though it may seem as though the Yahoo! Finance Article did a good job on summarising this paper's mayor findings, as one keeps reading it is noticeable that it becomes more of a "promotional stunt" than an informative article for the community. As one reaches the last 2-3 paragraphs of the Yahoo! article a company is mentioned, a product is introduced and the rest of the article just reads like a TV commercial for a household product (an air filter for your home). Which leads me to believe that the Yahoo! article was written with the purpose of "scaring people into buying their product" (it is a Yahoo! Finance article after all) or creating a bigger problem so that the public will buy their solution.
Why did I use " " for that particular phrase? Because when you compare and contrast the Yahoo! and the EHP article, it is noticeable how the Yahoo! author only took the bits and pieces of that paper that would make their product more marketable. For example, the Yahoo! article mentioned a "direct link" to have been found in the study when in the Conclusions section of the paper they state that they [observed associations between the two and it should serve as strong indicator to pursue future studies]. Another example would be that they only propose one solution to this problem, which would be (yes, you guessed it!) buying their product.
Also the Yahoo! article fails to mention a wide number of important information found in the paper such as: how each subject treated/considered, and how the exposure to the air pollution was quantified. In the paper, they took week long measurements of NO2 (which is a traffic pollution indicator) during a 6 month period and used those measurements and the area in which the participating cohort lived to run models to determine their exposure to this indicator substance.
Overall, I thought that Yahoo! Finance had an interesting article when I started to read it but was very disappointed at the end. However, that paper was so interesting to me that I had to share it here. Also similar types of studies have been done in Mexico.
Isabel, I agree with you that this article is quite disappointing! Upon looking into the article a little further, I noticed that it is sourced by Yahoo!Finance from PRNewswire by Camfil (the air filter company). PRNewswire is a company that promotes businesses through press releases made by the corporations themselves. Basically, pay money = get more publicity. As far as I can tell, there is very little credibility in these press releases since they are made by the corporations and may not undergo any sort of objective proofing - which is very concerning!
ReplyDeleteI also agree that this article's main focus is scaring the reader into buying a product, or at the very least putting the company Camfil in the spotlight as the "good guy" in this situation. However, I think what I find most concerning is that Yahoo! chose to publicize this under their name. While I do not consider Yahoo! to be the most credible news source, it may be the only source for many people and if people think that all our pollution problems can be solved by one tiny filter, I'm concerned that the general public will not treat air pollution like the big deal that it is. I feel as though this article really down-plays a serious issue.
I agree with Olivia. It is unfortunate that this type of news article is easier for the general public to access and to read than a credible journal article. Not only does Yahoo! seem to suggest that buying a Camfil filter is a sure way to protect them from Alzheimer's disease, which may reduce how important air pollution is to the general public, but it also can create misconceptions on how air pollution problems should be dealt with.
DeleteThank you for sharing the background of PRNewswire. I'd hardly call their work in this article a press release.
DeleteThis post presents the interesting exchange between science, corporations, media and the general public. Yahoo is willing to let Camfil hire a media marketing company PRNewswire and use Yahoo's News outlet for marketing under the guise of a scientific press release. Journal article's main finding is presented, but the content is superficially addressed in a fear mongering manner. The EHP study seems to be carried out well. The manner in which PRNewswire presents the information is a poor representation of the science to the public, but the writers clearly have other aims.
I did try to do some digging to see if Camfil has published other articles related to scientific articles linked to air quality and came up empty. Hopefully the lack of response to the article (0 comments) will discourage future publications.
Olivia and Ryan bring up serious and concerning issues about the reality we live in. Which is whoever has more money has more power/control over media (or as Olivia mentioned: pay more = get more publicity, which leads to better exposure and more "turn up" from the possible clients). To me, it is concerning but not as surprising that Yahoo! published this article because of what was previously said (money can make the world go around). This is a perfect example of how companies are using Science to either sell their product or get better and more PR (public relations, not Puerto Rico). And this is a very serious issue as well, and add to that all the misconceptions (as Ryan mentioned) that come with this.
DeleteJim, they clearly have an aim. However, how positive can this aim be if its not to educate the population but make them believe this company has the "miracle filter" that will trap all the air pollution that can get into your home (when that's not actually true).
I agree with you Isabel that yahoo finance had an interesting topic from the title but lackluster within the text. I felt as though by the end it was a big ploy to get a reputation, hence why its featured in the financial section in yahoo. I took a look back in the company history and they make the articles themselves. All of it as you said is a marketing ploy that scares people who do not have a scientific background into thinking various propaganda.
ReplyDeleteExactly, and it clearly shows how companies are using science to sell their products; "Science Sells" is the new "Sex Sells".
DeleteI share the same disappointment you and the other commenters have upon reaching the last few paragraphs of the article and realizing that it was more of an advertisement than anything else. I doubt this was a front-page article on Yahoo! but I think it's definitely plausible a number of people actually read this article just based on the attention-grabbing title. The fact that this article was posted over a month ago and has no comments leads me to believe most readers just dismissed it as bogus. I got a good chuckle from the following line though: "With innovative, industry-leading filters in place, we can all, literally, breath a sigh of relief."
ReplyDeleteThat quote was "the cherry on top" for me. I even got a bit offended that they would undermine such a huge and relevant issue in our daily lives. But I would not judge the exposure (or rather the amount of people who have read and "bought into the whole miracle filters thing") by the amount of comments it has. A lot of people would abstain from commenting on articles like these for various reasons.
DeleteIt is actually quite incredible how quickly the tone of the news article changes from a serious research discussion to a commercial ploy. Personally, I find the data the article presents rather significant. Seeing how Yahoo! Finance is a major media source, this article is undoubtedly getting a considerable amount of attention, but the article undermines the problem and implies an easy fix with these air filters.
ReplyDeleteThat change in tone was what really threw me off about the article. At first, I didn't understand why such an article would be published under Yahoo! Finance until I faced that change of tone. Also, the journal under which the scientific article is published, EHP, is a well regarded one. Therefore, I don't think they would publish an article with no significant data.
DeleteI also felt disappointed after I read the Yahoo! Finance article. The author supported too little evidence to prove his idea. In addition, I agree with you that the author of Yahoo! article need to tell us the method they used for exposure evaluation.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the article went from very interesting to commercial very abruptly. The little Carmil logo at the top might indicate that it was sponsored by them. I would have liked to see within the study a breakdown of how people used their time. Did their job require them to be outside in the city more, were their other risk factors they encountered that increased their risk for dementia when combined with the air pollution exposure, etc.
ReplyDelete