Notre Dame: Football Star Manti Te'o Was 'Catfished' in Girlfriend Hoax

<iframe height="221" id="kaltura_player_1358461265" src="http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/1_6suuszl8/uiconf_id/3775332/st_cache/12533?referer=http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax-dead-spin-author-discusses-18236549&autoPlay=false&addThis.playerSize=392x221&freeWheel.siteSectionId=nws_offsite&closedCaptionActive=true&" style="border: 0px solid #ffffff;" width="392">Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames.</iframe> <div style="font-size: x-small; margin-top: 0; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed</span><br /><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span><br /><div class="byline_date" style="float: left; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 490px;"><div class="byline_date_inner" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 485px;"><div class="byline" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">From: http://abcnews.go.com</div><div class="byline" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">By <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/author/colleen_curry" rel="author" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;">COLLEEN CURRY</a>, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/author/michael_s_james" rel="author" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;">MICHAEL S. JAMES</a> (<a href="http://twitter.com/bymsj" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">@bymsj</a>) and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/author/dan_harris" rel="author" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;">DAN HARRIS</a> (<a href="http://twitter.com/danbharris" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">@danbharris</a>)</div><div class="date" style="margin: 0px; padding: 4px 0px 0px;">Jan. 16, 2013</div></div></div><br /><div id="sponsoredByAd" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; left: 430px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px; text-align: right; top: 405px;"><span id="sponsoredbylogo1" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span id="_fw_container_sponsoredbylogo1" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."</div><div class="rel_container g_4" id="rel_image_feature" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin: 20px 50px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 200px;"><div class="rel_content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="rel_thumb" style="line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8896966065785019252" name="lpos=widget[Left_Rail_Image]&lid=view[Image]" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;"><img alt="PHOTO: Manti Te'o of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish warms up prior to playing against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game, Jan. 7, 2013 in Miami Gardens, Fla." border="0" height="112" src="http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/gty_manti_teo_girlfriend_hoax_nt_130116_wg.jpg" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.5px; padding: 0px;" title="" width="199" /><span class="image_icon" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://a.abcnews.com/assets/images/icons/image_icon_35x35.png); background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; height: 35px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: 5px; top: 73px; width: 35px;"></span></a></div><div class="rel_headline" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin: 3px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="photo_credit" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-size: 11px; line-height: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;">Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images</div><div class="photo_caption" style="margin: 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div></div></div></div><div class="rel_container g_4" id="rel_1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; float: left; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin: 20px 50px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 200px;"><div class="rel_content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="rel_thumb" style="line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8896966065785019252" name="lpos=widget[Left_Rail_Video_1]&lid=view[Video]" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;"><img border="0" height="112" src="http://a.abcnews.com/images/WNT/abc_wn_harris_130116_wl.jpg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="200" /></a></div></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The <a href="http://deadspin.com/5976517/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-heartbreaking-and-inspirational-story-of-the-college-football-season-is-a-hoax" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="external">website</a> reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said. According to Notre Dame, Te'o and his family came forward to the university with concerns that Te'o had been the victim of a hoax in December 2012."On Dec. 26, Notre Dame coaches were informed by Manti Te'o and his parents that Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name, Lennay Kekua, apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia," the university said in a statement released today.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"The university immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax," it said. "While the proper authorities will continue to investigate this troubling matter, this appears to be, at a minimum, a sad and very cruel deception to entertain its perpetrators."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Though the university's statement may have implied that it referred the matter to outside authorities, Swarbrick later said that the university had only hired a private investigator and not notified the NCAA or law enforcement.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"There's no factual predicate for an NCAA violation that we could find," he said.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"And no, we did not refer this to criminal authorities," he added. "We believe it's the victim's decision to make."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Te'o is currently preparing for the NFL draft, according to his statement.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"There's a lot of tragedy here, there's a lot of sorrow here," Swarbrick said.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"But the thing I am most sad of is--" he added, pausing to apologize and wipe away tears, is "that the single most trusting human being I have ever met will never be able to trust in the same way ever again."</div></div>

Manti Te'o Notre Dame: Football Star Manti Te'o Was 'Catfished' in Girlfriend Hoax

Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames. Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed From: http://abcnews.go.com By ...

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50 Cent Saw Chief Keef's Legal Troubles Coming

<br /><h2 class="sub-title article" style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; padding-right: 30px;">'I knew what continues to happen afterwards if you let it spiral out of control,' Fif tells MTV News of his collaborator and labelmate.</h2><div>From: http://www.mtv.com</div><div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><b>NEW YORK</b> — <a href="http://www.mtv.com/artists/chief-keef/" style="color: #00bce4; text-decoration: initial;">Chief Keef</a>'s <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1700256/chief-keef-jail-gun-interview.jhtml" style="color: #00bce4; text-decoration: initial;">probation violation</a> didn't come as a big surprise to anyone, especially not collaborator and Interscope labelmate<a href="http://www.mtv.com/artists/50-cent/" style="color: #00bce4; text-decoration: initial;">50 Cent</a>, who says he saw the trouble coming.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">"With Chief Keef, it's unfortunate to hear that he's actually locked up," Fif told MTV News on Wednesday (January 16), a day after Keef was detained in Chicago when he was videotaped holding a gun, which is in violation of his probation. "I feel bad, because I feel like I knew that was gonna happen. I knew what continues to happen afterwards if you let it spiral out of control."</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></div><div class="player-placeholder right" height="255" id="vid:872721" style="background-color: white; float: right; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin-left: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px;" title="50 Cent Speaks On Chief Keef Troubles" width="415"><div class="playerPlaceholder" flashvars="configParams=vid%3D872721" height="255" id="mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:872721" style="cursor: pointer; height: 255px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 415px;" width="415"><div style="color: white; font-weight: bold; left: 90px; position: absolute; top: 119px;">50 Cent Speaks On Chief Keef Troubles</div><img src="http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/uri/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:872721?height=255&width=415" style="color: #999999; font-size: 9px;" /></div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">50 was in New York signing autographs and promoting his new workout book "Formula 50" at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble but took time out to weigh in on the Keef controversy. The two worked together on CK's <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1697542/50-cent-chief-keef-beef-video-shoot.jhtml" style="color: #00bce4; text-decoration: initial;">"Hate Bein' Sober"</a> single from Keef's debut LP, <i>Finally Rich,</i> but after the teenage rapper left Fif and Wiz Khalifa hanging at the song's Las Vegas video shoot in November, the rap veteran was a little turned off. Though he didn't appreciate the no-show, 50 maintained that he's a Chief Keef fan and even went so far as to <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1698165/50-cent-forgives-chief-keef.jhtml" style="color: #00bce4; text-decoration: initial;">compare the young rapper</a> to his own son in a radio interview two weeks after the failed shoot.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Fif is still rooting for Keef, even though they haven't spoken since the youngster left him high and dry. "I haven't been in communications with him following that, and I wish him the best," 50 said before remarking on the rap rookie's potential. "Chief Keef, I think he has something, obviously. Even within the system, no one has done anything for Chief Keef. He's still just this raw music, raw talent, because he shot all of these music videos in the living room."</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The music mogul hopes more young rap talent will follow in Chief Keef's footsteps. His breakout music video for "I Don't Like" was crudely shot in a non-descript home, but made enough of an impact to earn Sosa more than 20 million YouTube views and a lucrative recording contract with Interscope.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">"He hasn't had a music video that cost more than $4,000, so that should indicate to other young talent out there that they can do it with the means they have around them," he said. "Their telephone can serve as the actual video camera if you record the right in-studio performances. There are limitless opportunities out here now."</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><i>Can Chief Keef bounce back from his latest legal trouble? Let us know what you think in the comments!</i></div></div>

50 CENT MTV Music 50 Cent Saw Chief Keef's Legal Troubles Coming

'I knew what continues to happen afterwards if you let it spiral out of control,' Fif tells MTV News of his collaborator and labelma...

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Comedy Central hit Workaholics premieres Wednesday night

<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bpgQSbwnWD0?feature=player_embedded" width="640"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 0.75em;">Season four of the <a href="http://mashable.com/category/comedy-central/" style="color: #0c74a6; text-decoration: initial;">Comedy Central</a> hit <em>Workaholics</em> premieres Wednesday night, marking the return of ne'er-do-wells Adam, Blake and Ders to college living rooms across the country.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 0.75em;">The sitcom follows the three twenty-somethings as they party, get into mischief and generally screw off at their lame telemarketing job in Southern California. Its offbeat humor, clever dialogue and irreverent take on post-grad life have made <em><a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/workaholics" style="color: #0c74a6; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Workaholics</a></em> a cult favorite beyond just the college set, and an <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/16ku5h/we_are_blake_anderson_anders_holm_and_adam_devine/" style="color: #0c74a6; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">AMA the co-stars</a> did on Tuesday was up-voted to <a href="http://mashable.com/category/reddit/" style="color: #0c74a6; text-decoration: initial;">Reddit</a>'s top spot.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 0.75em;">Comedy Central has posted <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CE46F72D4FE9E45" style="color: #0c74a6; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">more than 50</a> <em>Workaholics</em> clips to YouTube, but the trio likely would have never made it to TV in the first place if not for the video sharing network.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 0.75em;">Comedy Central picked up the show in 2010 based on the humor and popularity of Adam DeVine, Blake Anderson and Anders Holm's <a href="http://mashable.com/category/youtube/" style="color: #0c74a6; text-decoration: initial;">YouTube</a> channel Mail Order Comedy and their online series <em>5th Year</em>. The rest, as they say, is history — but their path from web to broadcast reflects an increasingly common method of making it big and the wider range of possibilities facilitated by the social web.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 0.75em;">"The way this show evolved from a <em>5th Year</em> and <em>Mail Order Comedy</em> webisode concept into a Comedy Central series is an example of how creative talent can use these two complimentary media platforms,” David Pritchard, head of the production company Gigapix Studios, said in a press release when <em>Workaholics</em> was <a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/press/press_releases/2010/030210_workaholics-greenlight.jhtml" style="color: #0c74a6; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">picked up</a>.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 0.75em;">The gallery above includes a handful of <em>Mail Order Comedy</em>'s funniest throwback videos, all uploaded between three and six years ago. Check it out to see what the flakiest workaholics around were up to before they became superstars</div><br /><br />

Comedy Central hit Workaholics premieres Wednesday night

Season four of the  Comedy Central  hit  Workaholics  premieres Wednesday night, marking the return of ne'er-do-wells Adam, Blake and De...

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Conrad Bain Dies at 89

<img alt="Conrad Bain Dies at 89" height="266" src="http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/cheats/2013/01/17/conrad-bain-dies-at-89/jcr:content/image.img.204.136.jpg/1358427174421.cached.jpg" width="400" /><br /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Conrad Bain, the star of the ’70s and ’80s sitcom </span><i style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Diff’rent Strokes,</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> has died, his daughter confirmed Wednesday. He was just three weeks short of his 90th birthday. Bain had a long career of playing professional characters such as doctors and lawyers before his breakout part, a conservative neighbor of Maude on </span><i style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Maude. </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">After that show ended, Bain landed his own sitcom, </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Diff’rent Strokes,</em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> where he played a Park Avenue widower who adopted two young black boys from Harlem—a rare sight on 1970s television.</span><br />From:<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/">http://www.thedailybeast.com</a>

Conrad Bain Dies at 89 Conrad Bain Dies at 89

Conrad Bain, the star of the ’70s and ’80s sitcom  Diff’rent Strokes,  has died, his daughter confirmed Wednesday. He was just three weeks s...

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'Survival of the wrongest' : Columbia Journalism Review

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In late 2011, in a nearly 6,000-word article in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); "><i>The New York Times Magazine</i></a>, health writer Tara Parker-Pope laid out the scientific evidence that maintaining weight loss is a nearly impossible task—something that, in the words of one obesity scientist she quotes, only "rare individuals" can accomplish. Parker-Pope cites a number of studies that reveal the various biological mechanisms that align against people who've lost weight, ensuring that the weight comes back. These findings, she notes, produce a consistent and compelling picture by "adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges conventional thinking about obesity, weight loss, and willpower. For years, the advice to the overweight and obese has been that we simply need to eat less and exercise more. While there is truth to this guidance, it fails to take into account that the human body continues to fight against weight loss long after dieting has stopped. This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">But does this mean the obese should stop trying so hard to lose weight? Maybe. Parker-Pope makes sure to include the disclaimer that "nobody is saying" obese people should give up on weight loss, but after spending so much time explaining how the science "proves" it's a wasted effort, her assurance sounds a little hollow.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The article is crammed with detailed scientific evidence and quotes from highly credentialed researchers. It's also a compelling read, thanks to anecdotal accounts of the endless travails of would-be weight-losers, including Parker-Pope's own frustrating failures to remove and keep off the extra 60 pounds or so she says she carries.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In short, it's a well-reported, well-written, highly readable, and convincing piece of personal-health-science journalism that is careful to pin its claims to published research.<br><br>There's really just one problem with Parker-Pope's piece: Many, if not most, researchers and experts who work closely with the overweight and obese would pronounce its main thesis—that sustaining weight loss is nearly impossible—dead wrong, and misleading in a way that could seriously, if indirectly, damage the health of millions of people.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Many readers—including a number of physicians, nutritionists, and mental-health professionals—took to the blogs in the days after the article appeared to note its major omissions and flaws. These included the fact that the research Parker-Pope most prominently cites, featuring it in a long lead, was a tiny study that required its subjects to go on a near-starvation diet, a strategy that has long been known to produce intense food cravings and rebound weight gain; the fact that many programs and studies routinely record sustained weight-loss success rates in the 30-percent range; and Parker-Pope's focus on willpower-driven, intense diet-and-exercise regimens as the main method of weight loss, when most experts have insisted for some time now that successful, long-term weight loss requires permanent, sustainable, satisfying lifestyle changes, bolstered by enlisting social support and reducing the temptations and triggers in our environments—the so-called "behavioral modification" approach typified by Weight Watchers, and backed by research studies again and again.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Echoing the sentiments of many experts, Barbara Berkeley, a physician who has long specialized in weight loss, <a href="http://www.refusetoregain.com/2011/12/the-fat-trap-my-response.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">blogged</a> that the research Parker-Pope cites doesn't match reality. "Scientific research needs to square with what we see in clinical practice," she wrote. "If it doesn't, we should question its validity." David Katz, a prominent physician-researcher who runs the Yale Prevention Research Center and edits the journal <i>Childhood Obesity</i>, charged in his <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/weight_b_1179562.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">Huffington Post blog</a> that Parker-Pope, by listing all the biological mechanisms that work against weight loss, was simply asking the wrong question. "Let's beware the hidden peril of that genetic and biological understanding," he wrote. "It can be hard to see what's going on all around you while looking through the lens of a microscope." In fact, most of us know people—friends, family members, colleagues—who have lost weight and kept it off for years by changing the way they eat and boosting their physical activity. They can't all be freaks of biology, as Parker-Pope's article implies.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The <i>Times</i> has run into similar trouble with other prominent articles purporting to cut through the supposed mystery of why the world keeps getting dangerously fatter. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">One such piece</a> pointed the finger at sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/magazine/13obesity.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">another</a> at bacteria. But perhaps the most controversial of the <i>Times</i>'s solution-to-the-obesity-crisis articles was the magazine's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">cover story</a> in 2002, by science writer Gary Taubes, that made the case that high-fat diets are perfectly slimming—as long as one cuts out all carbohydrates. His article's implicit claim that copious quantities of bacon are good for weight loss, while oatmeal, whole wheat, and fruit will inevitably fatten you up, had an enormous impact on the public's efforts to lose weight, and to this day many people still turn to Atkins and other ultra-low-carb, eat-all-the-fat-you-want diets to try to shed excess pounds. Unfortunately, it's an approach that leaves the vast majority of frontline obesity experts gritting their teeth, because while the strategy sometimes appears to hold up in studies, in the real world such dieters are rarely able to keep the weight off—to say nothing of the potential health risks of <a href="http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/high-protein-low-carbohydrate-diets" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">eating too much fat</a>. And of course, the argument Taubes laid out stands in direct opposition to the claims of the Parker-Pope article. Indeed, most major <i>Times</i> articles on obesity contradict one another, and they all gainsay the longstanding consensus of the field.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">The problem isn't unique to the <i>Times</i>, or to the subject of weight loss. In all areas of personal health, we see prominent media reports that directly oppose well-established knowledge in the field, or that make it sound as if scientifically unresolved questions have been resolved. The media, for instance, have variously supported and shot down the notion that vitamin D supplements can protect against cancer, and that taking daily and low doses of aspirin extends life by protecting against heart attacks. Some reports have argued that frequent consumption of even modest amounts of alcohol leads to serious health risks, while others have reported that daily moderate alcohol consumption can be a healthy substitute for exercise. Articles sang the praises of new drugs like Avastin and Avandia before other articles deemed them dangerous, ineffective, or both.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">What's going on? The problem is not, as many would reflexively assume, the sloppiness of poorly trained science writers looking for sensational headlines, and ignoring scientific evidence in the process. Many of these articles were written by celebrated health-science journalists and published in respected magazines and newspapers; their arguments were backed up with what appears to be solid, balanced reporting and the careful citing of published scientific findings.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">But personal-health journalists have fallen into a trap. Even while following what are considered the guidelines of good science reporting, they still manage to write articles that grossly mislead the public, often in ways that can lead to poor health decisions with catastrophic consequences. Blame a combination of the special nature of health advice, serious challenges in medical research, and the failure of science journalism to scrutinize the research it covers.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Personal-health coverage began to move to the fore in the late 1980s, in line with the media's growing emphasis on "news you can use." That increased attention to personal health ate into coverage of not only other science, but also of broader healthcare issues. A <a href="http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7869.pdf" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">2009 survey</a> of members of the Association of Health Care Journalists found that more than half say "there is too much coverage of consumer or lifestyle health," and more than two-thirds say there isn't enough coverage of health policy, healthcare quality, and health disparities.<br><br>The author of <a href="http://www.kff.org/entmedia/mh031109pkg.cfm" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">a report</a> based on that survey, Gary Schwitzer, a former University of Minnesota journalism researcher and now publisher of healthcare-journalism watchdog <a href="http://http//www.healthnewsreview.org/" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">HealthNewsReview.org</a>, also conducted a study in 2008 of 500 health-related stories published over a 22-month period in large newspapers. The results suggested that not only has personal-health coverage become invasively and inappropriately ubiquitous, it is of generally questionable quality, with about two-thirds of the articles found to have major flaws. The errors included exaggerating the prevalence and ravages of a disorder, ignoring potential side effects and other downsides to treatments, and failing to discuss alternative treatment options. In the survey, 44 percent of the 256 staff journalists who responded said that their organizations at times base stories almost entirely on press releases. Studies by other researchers have come to similar conclusions.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Thoughtful consumers with even a modest knowledge of health and medicine can discern at a glance that they are bombarded by superficial and sometimes misleading "news" of fad diets, miracle supplements, vaccine scares, and other exotic claims that are short on science, as well as endlessly recycled everyday advice, such as being sure to slather on sun protection. But often, even articles written by very good journalists, based on thorough reporting and highly credible sources, take stances that directly contradict those of other credible-seeming articles.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">There is more at stake in these dueling stories than there would be if the topic at hand were, say, the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Personal healthcare decisions affect our lifespan, the quality of our lives, and our productivity, and the result—our collective health—has an enormous impact on the economy. Thirty years ago, misleading health information in the press might not have been such a problem, since at the time physicians generally retained fairly tight control of patient testing and treatment decisions. Today, however, the patient is in the driver's seat when it comes to personal health. What's more, it is increasingly clear that the diseases that today wreak the most havoc—heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's—are most effectively dealt with not through medical treatment, but through personal lifestyle choices, such as diet, exercise, and smoking habits.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Consider the potential damage of bad weight-loss-related journalism. Obesity exacerbates virtually all major disease risks—and more than one in 20 deaths in the US is a premature death related to obesity, according to a <a href="http://abbmcertification.org/inc/assets/articles/Cause%20Specific%20Deaths%20assoc%20overweight.pdf" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">2007 <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> study</a>. Obesity carries an annual price tag of as much as $5,000 a year in extra medical costs and lost productivity, for a total cost to the US economy of about $320 billion per year—a number that could quadruple within 10 years as obesity rates climb, according to some studies. (There is, of course, a lot of uncertainty in cost projections, and this research does not account for the impact of the Affordable Care Act.) On top of these costs are the subjective costs of the aches, discomforts, and compromised mobility associated with obesity.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Meanwhile, there's a wide range of convincing-sounding yet wildly conflicting weight-loss-related claims made by prominent science journalists. People who might otherwise be able to lose weight on the sort of sensible, lifestyle-modification program recommended by most experts end up falling for the faddish, ineffective approaches touted in these articles, or are discouraged from trying at all. For example, innumerable articles (including Parker-Pope's <i>Times</i> piece) have emphasized the notion that obesity is largely genetically determined. But study after study has shown that obesity tends to <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/index.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">correlate to environment</a>, not personal genome, as per the fact that people who emigrate from countries with traditionally low obesity rates, such as China, tend to hew to the obesity rates of their <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17493563" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">adopted countries</a>. What's more, global obesity rates are rapidly rising year by year, including in China, whereas the human genome barely changes over thousands of years. And <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22069379" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">studies clearly show</a> that "obesity genes" are essentially neutralized by healthy behaviors such as exercise.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It is not encouraging to those trying to muster the focus and motivation to stick to a healthy-eating-and-exercise program to hear that their obesity is largely genetically determined, suggesting—sometimes explicitly—that the obese are doomed to remain so no matter what they do. A 2011 <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i> study (<a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/when-fat-runs-in-the-family/]]." target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">as reported in <i>The New York Times</i></a>) found that people tend to binge after they find out they carry a supposed fat-promoting gene. Other studies have shown—in keeping with common sense—that one of the best predictors of whether someone starting a weight-loss program will stick with it is how strongly the person believes it will succeed. When journalists erode that confidence with misleading messages, the results are easy to predict.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">When science journalism goes astray, the usual suspect is a failure to report accurately and thoroughly on research published in peer-reviewed journals. In other words, science journalists are supposed to stick to what well-credentialed scientists are actually saying in or about their published findings—the journalists merely need to find a way to express this information in terms that are understandable and interesting to readers and viewers.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">But some of the most damagingly misleading articles don't stem from the reporter's failure to do this. Rather, science reporters—along with most everyone else—tend to confuse the findings of published science research with the closest thing we have to the truth. But as is widely acknowledged among scientists themselves, and especially within medical science, the findings of published studies are beset by a number of problems that tend to make them untrustworthy, or at least render them exaggerated or oversimplified.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It's easy enough to verify that something is going wrong with medical studies by simply looking up published findings on virtually any question in the field and noting how the findings contradict, sometimes sharply. To cite a few examples out of thousands, studies have found that <a href="http://www.webmd.com/menopause/features/hrt-revisiting-the-hormone-decision" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">hormone-replacement therapy</a> is safe and effective, and also that it is dangerous and ineffective; that virtually every vitamin supplement lowers the risk of various diseases, and also that they do nothing for these diseases; that low-carb, high-fat diets are the most effective way to lose weight, and that high-carb, low-fat diets are the most effective way to lose weight; that surgery relieves back pain in most patients, and that back surgery is essentially a <a href="http://www.srs.org/professionals/advocacy_and_public_policy/cms_spinal_surgery.pdf" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">sham treatment</a>; that cardiac patients fare better when someone secretly prays for them, and that secret prayer has no effect on cardiac patients. (Yes, these latter studies were undertaken by respected researchers and published in respected journals.)<br><br>Biostatisticians have studied the question of just how frequently published studies come up with wrong answers. A highly regarded researcher in this subfield of medical wrongness is John Ioannidis, who heads the Stanford Prevention Research Center, among other appointments. Using several different techniques, Ioannidis has <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">determined</a> that the overall wrongness rate in medicine's top journals is about two thirds, and that estimate has been well-accepted in the medical field.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A frequent defense of this startling error rate is that the scientific process is supposed to wend its way through many wrong ideas before finally approaching truth. But that's a complete mischaracterization of what's going on here. Scientists might indeed be expected to come up with many mistaken explanations when investigating a disease or anything else. But these "mistakes" are supposed to come in the form of incorrect <i>theories</i>—that a certain drug is safe and effective for most people, that a certain type of diet is better than another for weight loss. The point of scientific studies is to determine whether a theory is right or wrong. A study that accurately finds a theory to be incorrect has arrived at a correct finding. A study that mistakenly concludes an incorrect theory is correct, or vice-versa, has arrived at a wrong finding. If scientists can't reliably test the correctness of their theories, then science is in trouble—bad testing isn't supposed to be part of the scientific process. Yet medical journals, as we've seen, are full of such unreliable findings.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Another frequent claim, especially within science journalism, is that the wrongness problems go away when reporters stick with randomized control trials (RCTs). These are the so-called gold standard of medical studies, and typically involve randomly assigning subjects to a treatment group or a non-treatment group, so that the two groups can be compared. But it isn't true that journalistic problems stem from basing articles on studies that aren't RCTs. Ioannidis and others have found that RCTs, too (even large ones), are plagued with inaccurate findings, if to a lesser extent. Remember that virtually every drug that gets pulled off the market when dangerous side effects emerge was proven "safe" in a large RCT. Even those studies of the effectiveness of third-party prayer were fairly large RCTs. Meanwhile, some of the best studies have not been rcts, including those that convincingly demonstrated the danger of cigarettes, and the effectiveness of seat belts.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Why do studies end up with wrong findings? In fact, there are so many distorting forces baked into the process of testing the accuracy of a medical theory, that it's harder to explain how researchers manage to produce <i>valid</i> findings, aside from sheer luck. To cite just a few of these problems:</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>Mismeasurement</b> To test the safety and efficacy of a drug, for example, what researchers really want to know is how thousands of people will fare long-term when taking the drug. But it would be unethical (and illegal) to give unproven drugs to thousands of people, and no one wants to wait 20 years for results. So scientists must rely on animal studies, <a href="http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:SlHL4tGJF00J:www.cs.princeton.edu/picasso/abstracts_F06/krishna_files/Kola-Landis2004.pdf+%22Can+the+Pharmaceutical+Industry+Reduce+Attrition+Rates%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjNdDVyQM68tXynXI2sNT72R6Bu11YC1Enzi2gxLjbOGCqtqdP22t5n6WRr2ggZs82UyHUHvdcgkKQuxxJHtPYVNhQ7TdKQdrjbVj1bbeBS9tk9bEps3B0l_Pbor9UNZj5rP-UD&sig=AHIEtbTDkk8JsHATi1FWVw7NFPcLljvQNw" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">which tend to translate poorly to humans</a>, and on various short-cuts and indirect measurements in human studies that they hope give them a good indication of what a new drug is doing. The difficulty of setting up good human studies, and of making relevant, accurate measurements on people, plagues virtually all medical research.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>Confounders</b> Study subjects may lose weight on a certain diet, but was it because of the diet, or because of the support they got from doctors and others running the study? Or because they knew their habits and weight were being recorded? Or because they knew they could quit the diet when the study was over? So many factors affect every aspect of human health that it's nearly impossible to tease them apart and see clearly the effect of changing any one of them.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>Publication bias</b> Research journals, like newsstand magazines, want exciting stories that will have impact on readers. That means they prefer studies that deliver the most interesting and important findings, such as that a new treatment works, or that a certain type of diet helps most people lose weight. If multiple research teams test a treatment, and all but one find the treatment doesn't work, the journal might well be interested in publishing the one positive result, even though the most likely explanation for the oddball finding is that the researchers behind it made a mistake or perhaps fudged the data a bit. What's more, since scientists' careers depend on being published in prominent journals, and because there is intense competition to be published, scientists much prefer to come up with the exciting, important findings journals are looking for—even if it's a wrong finding. Unfortunately, as Ioannidis and others have pointed out, the more exciting a finding, the more likely it is to be wrong. Typically, something is exciting specifically because it's unexpected, and it's unexpected typically because it's less likely to occur. Thus, exciting findings are often unlikely findings, and unlikely findings are often unlikely for the simple reason that they're wrong.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Ioannidis and others have noted that the supposed protection science offers to catch flawed findings—notably <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05032.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">peer review</a> and<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7101/full/442344a.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">replication</a>—is utterly ineffective at detecting most problems with studies, from mismeasurement to outright fraud (which, confidential surveys have revealed, is far more common in research than most people would suppose).</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">None of this is to say that researchers aren't operating as good scientists, or that journals don't care about the truth. Rather, the point is that scientists are human beings who, like all of us, crave success, status, and funding, and who make mistakes; and that journals are businesses that need readers and impact to thrive.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It's one thing to be understanding of these challenges scientists and their journals face, and quite another to be ignorant of the problems they cause, or to fail to acknowledge those problems. But too many health journalists tend to simply pass along what scientists hand them—or worse, what the scientists' PR departments hand them. Two separate 2012 studies of mass-media health articles, one published in <i>PLoS Medicine</i> and the other in <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d8164" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); "><i>The British Medical Journal</i></a>, found that the content and quality of the articles roughly track the content and quality of the press releases that described the studies' findings.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Given that published medical findings are, by the field's own reckoning, more often wrong than right, a serious problem with health journalism is immediately apparent: A reporter who accurately reports findings is probably transmitting wrong findings. And because the media tend to pick the most exciting findings from journals to pass on to the public, they are in essence picking the worst of the worst. Health journalism, then, is largely based on a principle of survival of the wrongest. (Of course, I quote studies throughout this article to support my own assertions, including studies on the wrongness of other studies. Should these studies be trusted? Good luck in sorting that out! My advice: Look at the preponderance of evidence, and apply common sense liberally.)</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">What is a science journalist's responsibility to openly question findings from highly credentialed scientists and trusted journals? There can only be one answer: The responsibility is large, and it clearly has been neglected. It's not nearly enough to include in news reports the few mild qualifications attached to any study ("the study wasn't large," "the effect was modest," "some subjects withdrew from the study partway through it"). Readers ought to be alerted, as a matter of course, to the fact that wrongness is embedded in the entire research system, and that few medical research findings ought to be considered completely reliable, regardless of the type of study, who conducted it, where it was published, or who says it's a good study.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Worse still, health journalists are taking advantage of the wrongness problem. Presented with a range of conflicting findings for almost any interesting question, reporters are free to pick those that back up their preferred thesis—typically the exciting, controversial idea that their editors are counting on. When a reporter, for whatever reasons, wants to demonstrate that a particular type of diet works better than others—or that diets never work—there is a wealth of studies that will back him or her up, never mind all those other studies that have found exactly the opposite (or the studies can be mentioned, then explained away as "flawed"). For "balance," just throw in a quote or two from a scientist whose opinion strays a bit from the thesis, then drown those quotes out with supportive quotes and more study findings.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Of course, journalists who question the general integrity of medical findings risk being branded as science "denialists," lumped in with crackpots who insist evolution and climate change are nonsense. My own experience is that scientists themselves are generally supportive of journalists who raise these important issues, while science journalists are frequently hostile to the suggestion that research findings are rife with wrongness. Questioning most health-related findings isn't denying good science—it's demanding it.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Ironically, we see much more of this sort of skeptical, broad-perspective reporting on politics, where politicians' claims and poll results are questioned and factchecked by journalists, and on business, where the views of CEOs and analysts and a range of data are played off against one another in order to provide a fuller, more nuanced picture.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Yet in health journalism (and in science journalism in general), scientists are treated as trustworthy heroes, and journalists proudly brag on their websites about the awards and recognition they've received from science associations—as if our goal should be to win the admiration of the scientists we're covering, and to make it clear we're eager to return the favor. <i>The New York Times</i>'s highly regarded science writer Dennis Overbye <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/science/27essa.html?_r=0" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">wrote in 2009</a> that scientists' "values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view." But given what we know about the problems with scientific studies, anyone who wants to assert that science is being carried out by an army of Abraham Lincolns has a lot of explaining to do. Scientists themselves don't make such a claim, so why would we do it on their behalf? We owe readers more than that. Their lives may depend on it.</p></div><a href="http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/survival_of_the_wrongest.php?page=all&print=true">http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/survival_of_the_wrongest.php?page=all&print=true</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

'Survival of the wrongest' : Columbia Journalism Review

In late 2011, in a nearly 6,000-word article in  The New York Times Magazine , health writer Tara Parker-Pope laid out the scientific eviden...

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Burberry's Architectural Appliqué

The latest addition to Chicago's Magnificent Mile has polarized the city's architecture critics. Cheryl Kent—Blair Kamin's stand-in at the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> while he takes in all Cambridge, MA, has to offer—<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/cityscapes/chi-burberry-store-michigan-avenue-20121129,0,46949.story">calls Burberry's flagship store</a> at Michigan and Ontario "not architecture—it's a building as billboard." Lynn Becker, in <a href="http://arcchicago.blogspot.com/2012/12/tartan-check-mate-burberrys.html">a piece on his blog</a> that seems to exist in order to refute Kent and her critique, is more accepting of the store's questionable architectural merits, particularly in relation to Michigan Avenue as "a series of malls separated by stretches of architectural glop." I'm somewhere between outright dismissal and thinking it's good because it's better than bad.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/8388661666/" title="Burberry Store by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Burberry Store" height="539" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8186/8388661666_4b7220a977_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />If you know Burberry (and, who doesn't?), then the building is instantly recognizable as their store. Basically the exterior is Burberry's signature tartan (below) enlarged to the size of a five-story building, turned 45 degrees, and rendered in reflective chrome on a black background. Kent, mistakenly in my opinion, calls the building a "decorated shed," referring to the famous polemic in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026272006X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=aweeklydoseof-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=026272006X"><i>Learning from Las Vegas</i></a>. The building actually confuses the distinction between the shed and the "duck," but I'd say it leans closer to the duck. The tartan facade, after all, is an architectural expression, not a sign applied to a blank box. The shed is more accurately depicted in the <a href="http://www.apple.com/retail/northmichiganavenue/">Apple store up the street</a>, which cuts the company's logo into the facade. Burberry's building isn't <a href="http://www.longaberger.com/homeOfficeFacts.aspx">a Longaberger</a>, but it's not too far off.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/burberry.jpg" /><br />[Burberry tartan | image <a href="http://www.conrandesigngroup.com/assets/blogs/2012/burberry">source</a>]<br /><br />Does it really matter if Burberry's store is a shed or a duck? It does if we judge the building as architecture rather than as signage. By angling the tartan 45 degrees, the in-house architects (with <a href="http://www.bapc.net/">Callison Barteluce</a>) are being playful with the pattern. But when I look at the tartan (above) I see so much more than an alternating rhythm of three wide stripes and one narrow band. I see things happening when these lines overlap; the stripes darken and change color, implying depth and a layering of lines. But what is the result on Michigan Avenue? Chrome stripes of equal value against a black background; absolutely no layering is evident on the facade. Further, the windows are orthogonal to the box, cutting against the diagonal stripes as if they are merely surface appliqué.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/8387574093/" title="Burberry Store by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Burberry Store" height="514" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8088/8387574093_5c23a68d71_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />Lynn Becker compares the new Burberry store to Herzog and de Meuron's <a href="http://archidose.org/wp/2003/03/24/prada/">Prada store in Tokyo</a>, placing the former in a lineage of the "luxury retail flagship wars that have, until now, passed the city by." What this comparison reveals to me is the disconnect between inside and outside that happens at Burberry. The diamond pattern does not disappear upon going inside Prada, but Burberry opted for a black box interior whose majority is divorced from the exterior. This aligns it with the malls that litter North Michigan Avenue, their windowless bases serving the retail tenants rather than passersby.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/dior-ginza.jpg" /><br />[Dior Ginza, Tokyo, Office of Kumiko Inui | image <a href="http://www.inuiuni.com/projects/234/">source</a>]<br /><br />The windows cut into the exterior are easily the design's best parts, even as they are troubling. They visually link inside and outside; they accentuate vertical movement across its five stories (elevation facing Ontario, visible in top photo); and likewise they promote the stairs as an active means of moving up and down floors through a prominent placement that gives shoppers views down Michigan Avenue. So this makes me wonder, why don't the windows and tartan pattern coincide, à la <a href="http://www.toyo-ito.co.jp/WWW/Project_Descript/2000-/2000-p_13/2000-p_13_en.html">Toyo Ito's design for Tod's Omotesando</a>? Why not use architecture itself to express a brand (if one must) rather than having the pattern trump architectural creativity? <a href="http://www.inuiuni.com/projects/234/">Kumiko Inui's Dior Ginza</a> hints at the potential that happens when a fashion house entrusts an architect to be creative with pattern, material, and transparency.

Burberry's Architectural Appliqué

The latest addition to Chicago's Magnificent Mile has polarized the city's architecture critics. Cheryl Kent—Blair Kamin's stand...

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Fecal Treatment Gains Favor for Some Illnesses - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The treatment may sound appalling, but it works.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure severe intestinal infections caused by a dangerous type of bacteria that antibiotics often cannot control.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A new study finds that such transplants cured 15 of 16 people who had recurring infections with Clostridium difficile bacteria, whereas antibiotics cured only 3 of 13 and 4 of 13 patients in two comparison groups. The treatment appears to work by restoring the gut's normal balance of bacteria, which fight off C. difficile.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The study is the first to compare the transplants with standard antibiotic therapy. The research, conducted in the Netherlands, was published Wednesday in The <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_england_journal_of_medicine/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about New England Journal of Medicine" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">New England Journal of Medicine</a>.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Fecal transplants have been used sporadically for years as a last resort to fight this stubborn and debilitating infection, which kills 14,000 people a year in the United States. The infection is usually caused by antibiotics, which can predispose people to C. difficile by killing normal gut bacteria. If patients are then exposed to C. difficile, which is common in many hospitals, it can take hold.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The usual treatment involves more antibiotics, but about 20 percent of patients relapse, and many of them suffer repeated attacks, with severe diarrhea, vomiting and fever.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Researchers say that, worldwide, about 500 people with the infection have had fecal transplantation. It involves diluting stool with a liquid, like salt water, and then pumping it into the intestinal tract via an enema, a colonoscope or a tube run through the nose into the stomach or small intestine.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Stool can contain hundreds or even thousands of types of bacteria, and researchers do not yet know which ones have the curative powers. So for now, feces must be used pretty much intact.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Medical journals have reported high success rates and seemingly miraculous cures in patients who have suffered for months. But until now there was room for doubt, because no controlled experiments had compared the outlandish-sounding remedy with other treatments.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The new research is the first to provide the type of evidence that skeptics have demanded, and proponents say they hope the results will help bring fecal transplants into the medical mainstream, because for some patients nothing else works.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"Those of us who do fecal transplant know how effective it is," said Dr. Colleen R. Kelly, a gastroenterologist with the Women's Medicine Collaborative in Providence, R.I., who was not part of the Dutch study. "The tricky part has been convincing everybody else."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">She added, "This is an important paper, and hopefully it will encourage people to change their practice patterns and offer this treatment more."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">One of Dr. Kelly's patients, Melissa Cabral, 34, of Dighton, Mass., was healthy until she contracted C. difficile in July after taking an antibiotic for dental work. She had profuse diarrhea, uncontrollable vomiting and high fevers that landed her in the hospital. She suffered repeated bouts, lost 12 pounds and missed months of work. Her young children would find her lying on the bathroom floor.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Initially, she rejected a fecal transplant because the idea disgusted her, but ultimately she became so desperate for relief that in November she tried it.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Within a day, her symptoms were gone.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"If I didn't do it, I don't know where I'd be now," she said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a href="http://www.einstein.yu.edu/departments/medicine/divisions/gastroenterology-liver-diseases/faculty/profile.asp?id=2519" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Dr. Lawrence J. Brandt</a>, a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said that the Food and Drug Administration had recently begun to regard stool used for transplant as a drug, and to require doctors administering it to apply for permission, something that he said could hinder treatment.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A spokeswoman for the agency, Rita Chappelle, said officials could not respond in time for publication.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">C. difficile is a global problem. Increasingly toxic strains have emerged in the past decade. In the United States, more than 300,000 patients in hospitals contract C. difficile each year, and researchers estimate that the total number of cases, in and out of hospitals, may be three million. Treatment costs exceed $1 billion a year.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Fecal therapy has often been used to cure gut trouble in cows and horses. Books on traditional Chinese medicine mention giving it to people by mouth to cure diarrhea in the fourth century; one book called it yellow soup.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In 1958, Dr. Ben Eiseman, of the University of Colorado, published a report about using fecal enemas to cure four patients with life-threatening intestinal infections.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The senior author of the new study, Dr. Josbert Keller, a gastroenterologist at the Hagaziekenhuis hospital in The Hague, said that before conducting the research, he and his colleagues had performed the transplant in about 10 cases, and it almost always worked.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"After the first four or five patients, we started thinking, 'We can't go on doing this kind of obscure treatment without evidence,' " Dr. Keller said. "Everybody is laughing about it."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The researchers studied adults who had been suffering from C. difficile for months and had had at least one relapse after antibiotics. They were picked at random to be in one of three groups. Only one group, 16 people, had the transplant: they took the antibiotic vancomycin for four days, had their intestines rinsed and then had the fecal solution pumped into their small intestines through a nose tube. A second group, 13 people, had the intestinal wash and 14 days of vancomycin; a third group, also 13 people, had only vancomycin.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The donors were tested for an array of diseases to make sure they did not infect the patients. Their specimens were mixed with saline in a blender and strained, to produce a solution that Dr. Keller said resembled chocolate milk.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Dr. Keller said that patients were so eager to receive transplants that they would not join the study unless the researchers promised that those assigned to antibiotics alone would get transplants later if the drugs failed.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Among the 16 who received transplants, 13 were cured after the first infusion. The other three were given repeat infusions from different donors, and two were also cured. In the two groups of patients who did not receive transplants, only 7 of 26 were cured.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Of the patients who did not receive transplants at first and who relapsed after receiving antibiotics only, 18 were subsequently given transplants, and 15 were cured.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The study was originally meant to include more patients, but it had to be cut short because the antibiotic groups were faring so poorly compared with the transplant patients that it was considered unethical to continue.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The results come as no surprise to doctors who have tried the procedure. <a href="http://www.med.umn.edu/gi/faculty/khoruts/home.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Dr. Alexander Khoruts</a>, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota, said he had performed the transplants in more than 100 patients with C. difficile. He said that it worked the first time in 90 percent, and that the other 10 percent were cured with a second treatment. The procedure can be done with a stool solution that has been frozen and thawed, he said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">One of Dr. Khoruts's concerns about the procedure is that many people assume it can be used for a variety of intestinal problems. He cautioned that, so far, the only real evidence is for C. difficile.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Eventually, he said, if researchers can determine which bacteria are crucial, it should become possible to create products containing them, and to spare everyone the unpleasantness of dealing with stool specimens.</p></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Fecal Treatment Gains Favor for Some Illnesses - NYTimes.com

The treatment may sound appalling, but it works. Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure ...

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