Fiona Lethbridge

Senior Press Officer

 What is the Science Media Centre?

We’re an independent press office for science / health / environment

We’re funded by 100 funders with donations capped at 5% of our

income

We have a database of 3,000 experts who comment on breaking

news, answer journalists’ questions, and provide third-party
comments in advance on the stories you’re working on

We tell scientists: “We’ll get the media to ‘DO’ science better when
scientists ‘DO’ media better”
Science Media Centres around the world:

SMC Germany
 Current funders January 2019

Abb Vie Ltd Embryology Quadram Institute Bioscience

Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) Food Standards Agency (FSA) Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL)
Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board Gatsby Charitable Foundation Rolls Royce
Alzheimer's Research Trust Genomics England Royal Academy of Engineering
Alzheimer's Society Horizon Nuclear Power Royal Society of Biology
Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) Sellafield sites
Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Imperial College London Society for Applied Microbiology (SFAM)
(ABPI) Institute of Physics Society for Endocrinology
AstraZeneca Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine Society for General Microbiology (SGM)
Bayer (IPEM) Society for Radiological Protection (SRP)
Biochemical Society Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Taylor and Francis
Bioindustry Association (BIA) Institution of Engineering and Technology (The IET) The Physiological Society
Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research John Innes Centre The PR Works Ltd
Council (BBSRC) John Wiley & Sons The Royal Society
BP International Ltd Keele University The Institute of Cancer Research, London
British Ecological Society King's College London UCL
British Heart Foundation Lancaster University UK Cleaning Products Industry Association (UKCPI)
British Pharmacological Society London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine UKRI
British Pharmacological Society (BPS) (LSHTM) University of Birmingham
British Society for Immunology (BSI) Marshall UK University of Bristol
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) McPin Foundation University of Cambridge
Chemical Industries Association (CIA) Mental Health Research UK (MHRUK) University of East Anglia (UEA)
Cochrane Microbiology Society University of Edinburgh
Covestro National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence University of Glasgow
CropLife International (NICE) University of Leeds
Deepmind National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) University of Leicester
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) University of Manchester
Strategy National Physical Laboratory (NPL) University of Nottingham
Dept for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) University of Oxford
Diageo Nature University of Reading
Durham University Newcastle University University of Sheffield
EDF Energy Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) University of Strathclyde
Elsevier Nutrition Society University of York
Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council Open University Wellcome Trust
(EPSRC) Orsted UK Ltd
Envigo Oxitec Ltd
European Society of Human Reproduction and Procter & Gamble (P&G)
89% of adults say traditional media is one of their two most
important sources of information about science

“59% say TV is one of their most regular sources of

information on science and 23% say print newspapers
are one of their most regular sources”

- Public Attitudes to Science 2014 - UK Government survey

 UK news media

Mail Express
(Metro)
Mirror Sun
Independent
PA, Reuters
Telegraph Guardian
Other news agencies
FT Times

Sky
BBC
ITN / Channel 5
…every outlet has
/ Channel 4 specialist journalists
Main Strategies

Rapid Reactions - responding to breaking stories

Round-ups - putting research into context

Media Briefings - scientists set the agenda

1. Rapid reactions – responding to breaking news

- We monitor news outlets for breaking stories

- If a story is inaccurate, or would benefit from
the involvement of scientists, we will call them
- We emphasise quick responses are essential!
Novichok nerve agent

Rapid Reaction, March 2018

Science Media Centre Rapid Reaction
IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Tuesday 6 March 2018

Prof Alastair Hay, Professor (Emeritus) of Environmental Toxicology, University of Leeds, said:

“The first clue is signs and symptoms in the individual. A second may be the circumstances in which someone is found. Ideally it would help to
question someone about this but if they have collapsed you have to test for substances. Signs and symptoms will give a clue about candidate
agents.

“Standard blood tests will be done to assess electrolyte levels and liver and kidney function. Individuals will be receiving intravenous fluids anyway
and it is essential to maintain fluid balance.

“Intensive care facilities in hospitals are best placed to look after poisoned patients as they have the necessary skills and equipment.

“As for tests, a variety of fluids will be investigated. Blood, saliva and urine will all be tested. Urine may provide clues for substances excreted more
rapidly.

“Given the apparent rapidity of onset of symptoms a bacterial or viral cause seems less likely but we know nothing at this stage about how the
couple were feeling hours earlier. So a microbiology lab may well do a range of screening tests to check for a bacterial cause. But this will depend
on what the clinical team feels is appropriate.

“Signs and symptoms give a clue about possible candidate chemicals or drugs and the hospital’s own laboratory may be able to do some of the
testing.

“Other labs at Guy’s hospital or in Birmingham are also equipped to screen for a wide range of substances. And finally, there is the government's
Chemical Defence laboratory at Porton Down which has state-of-the -art equipment to look for trace amounts of substances.

“Individuals cannot provide unlimited amounts of blood for testing so investigations will be guided by the clinical team. Some tests are rapid and
some candidates will be looked at quickly But if the cause is more unusual body fluids will require significant clean-up preparation before they can
be put in an instrument. So this could take a day or several days.

There will be active co-ordination with a whole range of agencies and hospital departments in a case like this.”
 Prof Hay said at this stage it was too
early to speculate on what the
substance might be.
But he said the fact that Public Health
England had said there was no wider
risk to the public suggested there might
have been "some very specific contact
with the substance and limited spread".

Prof Hay said knowing what had been

used to decontaminate the streets
could give clues to what officials
suspected the substance was.

Alastair Hay, emeritus professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds, said in a case like this hospitals and other agencies would be working
together to find out what happened.
Doctors will assess the pair's symptoms and carry out tests on them.
Blood tests will assess liver and kidney function, while urine may provide clues for substances excreted more rapidly, he said.
Some of these tests may be done in the hospital where they are being treated, but labs at Guy's Hospital, in London, and in Birmingham, could also be used
because they are specially equipped to screen for a wide range of substances.
And there is also the government's chemical defence laboratory at Porton Down - coincidentally also in Wiltshire - which has state-of-the-art equipment to
help detect trace amounts of chemicals.
But some of the tests could take several days to complete.
Alastair Hay, professor of environmental
toxicology at Leeds University, said the process
of detecting what will invariably be tiny
amounts of nerve agent takes times, Scientists
have to clean extraneous material from the
samples before they can test them, in order to
get an accurate result.
Dr Andrea Sella, a professor of inorganic chemistry at University College
London, suggested the authorities did not want the public to panic. He also
speculated the authorities might want to avoid letting those responsible for the
attack know how much they knew.
“You buy yourself time to be able to do further investigation and to get closer to
the source without letting the perpetrator know the extent to which you’re on
to them,” he said.
2. Roundups – putting new publications into
context

- we receive press releases from the top 10-

15 journals
- identify stories that are newsworthy,
controversial, or could be misreported
- seek 3rd party experts to provide context
- we do about one per day on average
On SMC Roundups, Chris Smyth, Health Editor at the
Times, said:

“I find the Roundups helpful for working

out which studies are crap and justifying
that to the news desk. A key part of the
job is keeping rubbish out of the
newspaper (sometimes more
successfully than others).”
National Obesity Forum report on dietary fat

Roundup, May 2016

Science Media Centre Roundup
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 23:00 UK TIME on Sunday 22 May 2016

Expert reaction to new report on diet as published by National

Obesity Forum*
Dr Mike Knapton, Associate Medical Director at the BHF, said:
“This report is full of ideas and opinion, however it does not offer the robust and comprehensive review of evidence that would
be required for the BHF, as the UK’s largest heart research charity, to take it seriously.
“This country’s obesity epidemic is not caused by poor dietary guidelines; it is that we are not meeting them. Diets that are high
in saturated fat have been shown to increase cholesterol. High cholesterol is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular
disease hence why current recommendations emphasise the importance of reducing this.
“Heart disease is a multifactorial condition with a range of risk factors and any dietary and lifestyle advice worth noting should
consider the overall impact that our diet and lifestyle has on our health. Focusing on single foods, nutrients or risk factors is short
sighted and will perpetuate confusion and fear amongst the public about what they should and shouldn’t eat to protect their heart
health.”

Prof Susan Jebb, Professor of Diet and Population Health at the University of Oxford, said:
On research method:
“As the importance of diet as a contributor to ill-health is increasingly recognised, so the evidence has come under greater
scrutiny. Nutrition is a complex science, and it’s hard to do classic randomised controlled trials over long enough periods to
observe the effects on heart disease or cancer so we need to combine these studies with observational analyses, using new
statistical techniques such as Mendelian…

Prof Naveed Sattar, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, said:
“The report has good, bad and ugly elements in it. Yes, it’s clear that snacking is generally to be avoided; few would argue
against this. It’s also clear that some sources of fat will be better than other sources. But to make the headline message that
we should all eat more fat as the cure to reverse obesity trends and thus type 2 diabetes is NOT warranted based on the totality
of evidence…
“Dr Mike Knapton,
associate medical
director at the British
Heart Foundation,
said the report was
‘full of ideas and
opinion’ but lacked
the rigour needed for
it to be taken
seriously. This
country’s obesity
epidemic is not
caused by poor
dietary guidelines, it
is that we are not
meeting them.”
“But Professor Tom Sanders, of
King’s College London, said:
‘The claim that not eating fat
does not make you fat is absurd
and plain wrong. If you eat a lot
of fat, you will get fat.’”
 3. Media briefings

- Scientists get to present the evidence on their own terms

- Journalists get the opportunity to interrogate them
- We do one or two per week, on average

- Two types:
- News briefings – new published results
- Background briefings – evidence check on a hot topic
 SMC press release labelling system

Recommendation from the AMS in their report on public understanding

Useful tool for:

1. Encouraging press officers to write responsible press releases.

2. Helping journalists to see at a glance the nature and significance of a

new set of research findings and encouraging them to convey this in their reporting.

3. Nudging scientists and press officers to ensure these important pieces of information are included in
every press release on new findings.

4. Helping press officers who sometimes find themselves dealing with scientists who are a little ‘over-
excited’ about the possible impact of their preliminary findings, or the exact opposite when scientists are
playing down findings that have demonstrated real effects in humans and are close to clinical application
What journalists think:

Josh Gabbatiss, Science correspondent, Independent:

“It looks great to me, the labels are clear and I’m all for a system which keeps
press releases and news articles proportionate to the science.”

Martin Bagot, Health and Science Correspondent, Mirror:

“Can only help – anything that makes things clearer sounds good.”

Vicky Allen, Science Correspondent, Daily Mail:

“The new press release labelling seems like a great common-sense idea.”
Reading a research paper

Why the full story probably isn’t in the press

release, and how to find out what it really is

Kevin McConway, The Open University (UK)

NPF Paris Accords of Science Communication
22 October 2019

31
Annals of Internal Medicine
Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday September 30 2019

New guidelines: No need to reduce red or processed meat consumption for good health
A rigorous series of reviews of the evidence found little to no health benefits for reducing red or processed
meat consumption

Based on a series of 5 high-quality systematic reviews of the relationship between meat consumption and
health, a panel of experts recommends that most people can continue to consume red meat and processed
meat at their average current consumption levels. Current estimates suggest that adults in North America and
Europe consume red meat and processed meat about 3 to 4 times per week. The evidence reviews and
recommendations are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

[…] Their conclusion that most adults should continue to eat their current levels of red and processed meat
intake, is contrary to almost all other guidelines that exist.
From: Reduction of Red and Processed Meat Intake and Cancer Mortality and IncidenceA Systematic Review
and Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies

Ann Intern Med. Published online October 01, 2019. doi:10.7326/M19-0699

Date of download: 10/14/2019 Copyright © American College of Physicians. All rights reserved.
When to go beyond the press
release

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 When to go beyond the press release:
some suggestions
• Exaggerations in press releases happen
• Check with:
– Science Media Centre (or equivalent in other countries)
– author
– paper
• Reasons for suspicion include:
– Health advice
– X “causes / is linked with” Y
– Animal study that extrapolates to people
– Borderline or lack of statistical significance
– Things not controlled for (confounders)
– Niche group of people
– Research not peer reviewed
• Often omitted from press releases: study limitations, funding, conflicts of interest 37
Reading the paper
• Takes time, has jargon
• But, typical structure (don’t need to read whole thing)
– Abstract – summary (group studied, study design, findings, stats results)
– Title – useful but sometimes like news headline
– Discussion – usefully has ‘strengths’ and ‘limitations’
– Introduction, or (simpler!) ‘What is already known on this topic’/‘What this
study adds’
– Usually less useful (for journalists):
• Methods – for confounders
• Results – usually enough in Abstract, but sometimes release concentrates on others
• Usual order: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion
• … but sometimes Methods comes last.
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Absolute risk, relative risk,
and co.

39
What do you want from a study of a potential
risk factor?
• Want to know:

– How likely is the outcome in exposed people?

(Absolute risk)
– How likely is the outcome in unexposed people?
(Baseline for comparison)
– How do these compare?

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Based on study of taking vitamin D supplements to reduce risk of acute
respiratory tract infections.

(Martineau et al., BMJ, February 2017, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i6583 )

41
 But the absolute risk isn’t always in the research
paper
• There can be good reasons for that.
• They might give the relative risk a.k.a. risk ratio:
% in people that were exposed
RR =
% in people that weren′t exposed
So for the Vitamin D study, RR = 39/42 = 0.93.

• Sometimes, again for good reasons, the paper reports

odds ratios (OR) or hazard ratios (HR) instead. These are also relative.

• Ask the scientists to give you useful numbers.

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 Why absolute risk matters
• The impact of a new treatment, or a harmful exposure,
depends on the absolute risks involved, not just on the RR.
• If the baseline risk (in unexposed people) is very small,
doubling or halving it may not be very important.
• Twice not very much is still not very much.
• But this can be a big issue in relating the statistical results to
individuals in a story.

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 What if the paper reports only relative measures?
• Ask the researchers

• Absolute risks might be in the paper somewhere, just well hidden.

• But are you the best person to be digging in the paper for them?
And they might not be there anyway.

• Press the researchers for an answer! Your readers want the

numbers, or at least some clear indication of importance.

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 Something good about the red meat study
• They pooled data from many studies, which produced
estimates of relative risk.
• But they then put these together with estimates of lifetime risk
to produce estimated absolute risk differences.
Messages about absolute and relative comparisons

• You can give, or get, quite a different impression depending on which

you use.
• So you can slant what you write, deliberately (but please don’t!) or
accidentally…
• …or you can be taken in by a misleading comparison in a press release.
• Giving only relative comparisons, e.g. of risk, can be very misleading.
Double a very small risk is still very small.
• Use absolute comparisons if at all possible.
– You may have to ask the researchers, or a statistician, or the Science Media
Centre.
– If the study is about a disease or condition, at least write something about
how common it is.
Types of study
Important because this determines strength of
findings and confidence in results

48
Study types
Roughly in decreasing order of strength of evidence:

• Randomized controlled trial (RCT)

• Various kinds of OBSERVATIONAL comparative studies
• Reports on interesting findings in clinics (case series or case reports)
• Animal studies (don’t fit on the same strength of evidence scale, really)

49
RCTs
• Why controls?
• Why randomize?
• Avoid bias
• Blinding

50
Observational studies in
epidemiology (etc.)

51
The general idea in epidemiology
• When you can’t do an RCT (e.g. epidemiology of things that are
possibly bad for people).
• There’s exposure to some (potential) risk
• There’s an outcome (disease, early death, etc.)
• Want to know whether exposure changes the chance of the outcome.
• But all you can do is observe what people do or did. No experimental
manipulation (as in an RCT). So these are observational studies.

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Randomized controlled trial
(December 2017)

Observational study
(December 2017)

Observational study
(December 2017)

Observational study
(November 2017)
Observational study
(January 2018)
Animal experiment
(January 2018) 53
Confounders and causality
54
55
 Air pollution, traffic noise and birth weight
• Observational (retrospective cohort) study, in London.
• 540,000 births, in 2006-10.
• Recorded air pollution and traffic noise measures at the
mother’s address (exposure)
• Outcome was birth weight.
• Conclusions:
– Higher chance of low birth weight for mothers in areas of higher air
pollution (odds increased by 2% to 6%)
– No observed effect of traffic noise.
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 Air pollution, traffic noise and birth weight
• If it was an RCT, would allocate mothers randomly to live in areas of
high or low pollution.
• But this was an observational study – maybe the mothers in
polluted areas smoked more, or were older, or something. Possible
‘somethings’ are called confounders.
• Press release: ‘the findings held true after other potentially
influential factors were taken into account, such as mother’s age,
ethnicity and deprivation.’
• Is this enough to avoid the confounding? You can’t tell, though
reading the paper might give you a better idea.
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 Confounders
• Can “adjust” statistically for confounders that you know
about.
• Press releases often say they adjusted for confounders but
don’t say which. This might cause you to be suspicious.
• Use your imagination! If you can think of a possible
confounder that isn’t mentioned, ask the scientists whether
it’s important and what they did about it.
• Confounders mean that there’s a possible alternative
explanation (not necessarily that that’s the true explanation).
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 Causality
• Crudely: you can infer causal effects from an RCT, but you
can’t from an observational study (cohort, case-control,
cross-sectional, whatever).
• “Correlation is not causation”
– But statisticians not always good on saying what is causation.
• So how do we know smoking causes lung cancer?
– “Causal narrative” from differing sources
– Bradford Hill criteria (e.g. effect size, plausibility, repetition and
reproducibility, etc.)
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Something else good about the red meat study
• They made it clear that the evidence was subject to possible
bias and uncertainty, using a standard scale (the GRADE scale).
• The conclusions were rated as ‘low certainty’ (or worse)
because they were almost all based on observational studies.
 Messages about confounders, causality and
correlation
• Confounders – quantities other than those being studies – can be
the true cause of observed effects, and generally can muddy the
waters.
– This is particularly an issue in observational studies, but can also arise in
poorly controlled experiments.
• Be careful not to make causal claims from observational studies
(probably even if the researchers make them).
• “Correlation is not causation.”
• If there is any suspicion that confounders might be involved (and
there almost always is in observational studies), mention it in your
story.
Statistical significance, p values,
confidence intervals

63
Statistical significance
• It doesn’t mean what you (possibly) thought it meant.
• Nothing directly to do with real-world importance
• A (flawed?) way of judging whether some finding can be explained
away by chance variability.
• …usually based on the p value.

64
p values
• It almost certainly doesn’t mean what you thought it meant.
• Number between 0 and 1 (or 0% and 100%).
• The smaller, the less likely it is that a finding is just chance (more or
less!)
• Common convention: if p < 0.05 (that is, 5%) a result is statistically
significant.
• But it’s just a convention (and doesn’t work well with big data)

65
 p values
• E.g. “people on the new drug had, on average, lower blood pressure than people on the
old drug (p = 0.03)”.

• DOESN’T mean:
• There’s a 0.03 (or 3%) probability that the result was due to chance.
• DEFINITELY DOESN’T mean
• There’s a 0.97 (or 97%) probability that the result was NOT due to chance.
• DOES mean:
• Assume that the new drug has the same average effect on blood pressure as the old
drug.
Then there’s a 3% probability that a difference like this (at least as extreme as this)
will be observed.

• So what IS the probability that the result was due to chance?

• You can’t say from this information (and often you can’t say at all)
66
But statistical significance might still be important
• p value is too big – plausible there’s no effect, just chance
variation.
• But still don’t know the probability that it is just down to
chance.

• One alternative approach uses confidence intervals – range of

(statistically) plausible values for something the study
measured.

67
Something else good about the red meat
study
• They reported confidence intervals!
• (But nobody mentioned them in the media stories.)
Messages about statistical significance,
p values and confidence intervals
• Statistical significance is a (flawed?) way of judging whether some finding
can be explained away by chance variability, usually based on the p value.
• Other things being equal, which they hardly ever are, the smaller the p
value, the less likely it is that a finding is due to chance alone.
• Common (but flawed) convention: if p<0.05, the result is statistically significant.
• But you still don’t know how likely it is that the result is due to chance.
• Calculating many p values increases the chance of finding false positive
results.
• Often better to use confidence intervals – ranges of (statistically) plausible
values for a quantity of interest.
Thanks!

Feedback to:
kevin.mcconway@open.ac.uk
Twitter: @kjm2

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