Tara Parker-Pope is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was invited to speak at the CRN Annual Conference in September, held in Boston, MA. You might remember her for the article she wrote this past March titled, “The Case Against Vitamins.”

In short, her piece discussed the state of the science on vitamins from a “devil’s advocate” point of view. In other words, most people believe that vitamins are untouchable-that they can only do good-so she decided to shed some light on the other side of vitamin research.

She highlighted less than positive findings on vitamins like C and E, as well as B vitamins. In addition to noting that these nutrients may not be beneficial, according to a growing body of research, she said they might also cause harm in some cases. Not surprisingly, a media frenzy ensued following publication of this story. The reaction from consumers ranged from: “How dare you talk about my vitamin E like that” to “I am throwing away all of my supplements today.”

I have to say I was impressed by Ms. Parker-Pope’s courage to face an audience of industry professionals who feel, in large part, that she is biased against dietary supplements. But she said it was important to be at the CRN Annual Conference to set the record straight about her feelings on reporting the research in this arena. (She even traveled through the night on a Greyhound bus, arriving at 3 a.m. in Boston to give her 10 a.m. presentation that same day. Now that’s dedication.)

Ms. Parker-Pope began her talk by saying the dietary supplement industry is at a crossroads with the consumer, claiming it has had a “free ride” on the backs of pharmaceutical companies for the last several years, but now it is time to face the music. She said we live in an age of the empowered consumer, which was created by pharmaceutical companies. And just as pharmaceutical companies have been taken to task, the dietary supplement industry too must face the same scrutiny.

Ms. Parker-Pope points out, quite accurately, that the dietary supplement industry, after years of prosperous growth, eventually became a victim of its own success (i.e., ephedra). And as soon as the media, government and consumers appeared to be turning their backs on the industry, “the dance wasn’t as fun anymore.”

As a health reporter for the last six years, Ms. Parker-Pope formulates a lot of her stories based on the research. But the problem with most media reporting, she said, is that writers rely too much on the “top line” findings or press releases to tell the entire story. Ms. Parker-Pope takes a different approach. Instead of reading press releases, she ignores them completely and reads entire studies in order to be able to put things into context for her readers. “Reporting on the top line results is like doing half the job. It is the subgroup analyses that really put things into perspective,” she said.

A journalist’s story is only as good as the information they’ve been given, according to Ms. Parker-Pope. In other words, medical institutions, government and even industry are not putting study findings into language that can be easily understood by and conveyed to the public, and therein lies the problem. Despite this, she believes journalists have a duty to get the story right.

Three weeks before The Wall Street Journal published “The Case Against Vitamins,” Ms. Parker-Pope was interviewed by the Columbia Journalism Review. Along with discussing her views on putting studies into context, she said, “My pet peeve is when I see somebody take a single study as the final word on a subject. In medicine, nothing is ever the final word. It’s always just one more piece of the puzzle. We’re all guilty of this sometimes because we get caught up in the story we’re writing.” Perhaps this was the case with how the industry, media and consumers viewed the story she wrote-as the final word on vitamins. Her story was no more the final word on vitamins than her trying to expose the other side of the coin.

Mr. Parker-Pope freely admits that not everyone gets the story right. But in truth, she said, journalists, and most people for that matter, love an underdog. And the dietary supplement industry is certainly the underdog in consumer healthcare. But, she said, “While journalists would love to write more positive stories about dietary supplements, the data just aren’t there.”

Rebecca Wright
Editor
[email protected]