Grade: F (fail)
Public Relations Firm: [23andMe]
Publishing Organization: The New York Times
Organization Section: Technology
Publication Name: Google Co-Founder Has Genetic Code Linked to
Parkinson's
Date Published: 9/18/08
Author Name: Miguel Helft
Editor Name: Damon Darlin
Link:
nytimes.com/2008/09/19/technology/19google.html
Moderator: Andrew Yates
Medical Genetics Advisor: Steven Murphy
Publication Level: Educated
Publication Level Justification: Prestigious print
newspaper
Reviewed: 9/22/08
Updated:
Disease: Parkinson's Disease
Gene: LRRK2
Mutation: G2019S
Moderator Editorial: This is a particularly poorly written
print article about a particularly well-written blog post. It is so
poor that it will be recorded forever as an archetypical example of a
bad medical genomic journalism for reasons discussed in my "LRRK2"
editorial: 23andMe's PR firm pushed this story too hard and, as a
result, significant medical misinformation was published. HelixGene
was created explicitly to prevent bad stories like this one.
Medical Editorial:
Criteria:
- (F:SMM)
The general public could misunderstand this article to mean that they
could have an 80% risk of Parkinson's Disease which they could learn
about by getting tested for G2019S at 23andMe. This would be a poor
medical decision. (endorsed: Steven Murphy, 9/21/08)
- (F:U:MISQUOTE) Misquote: by not
reporting the other 4P's in Sergey's post, the "20% to 80%" is a misquote
- (F:U:MISQUOTE) Misquote: No mention of the sampling caveats in Dr.
Bressman's G2019S study from which the quote "about 30 percent of
people with the gene mutation develop the
disease" was derived.
- (F:U:RESEARCH) A layperson's personal
blog is not a scientific medical source, even if that person is a
billionaire. No studies citied. Expert misquoted. No additional
sources linked except Sergey's blogspot blog. Looks to be dumped
directly out of a press release with little effort to do independent
research.
- (F:U:JOURNALISM) There are two misquotes that substantially
change the meaning of the source that would be unlikely with a clear
understanding of the material. Author has a degree in Comp Sci from
Stanford and reports about technology for the NYTs: expected level
comprehension for this publication level for this scientific material
is sorely lacking. confusing facts reported (penetrance) with no
resolution
- (F:4P)
- (F:4P:PROBABILITY) missing
- (F:4P:POPULATION) missing. despite writing Sergey's mother
has PD, the significance of family history or ethnicity is not
noted
- (F:4P:PENETRANCE) 30%? 20% to 80%? "many people with this
mutation never develop the disease?" wrong, confusing, justifies
SMM
- (F:4P:PREVALENCE) missing
- (F:X) Dishonesty:
Article amounts to an advertisement for Google and 23andMe. Sergey's
blog post was less of an advertisement, and he's entirely justified to
promote his own investments on his personal blog.
- (C:ACTION) does not report that 23andMe reports mutation in
raw data which requires special understanding about genomics to
understand, no note to contact doctor or authority, no links to
authority or more information for the concerned
- (C:FACTS) The sum genomic information in this article is not
consistent with HelixGene's genomic report
- (A:NAME) no
misspellings, gene and mutation names included
