Fit to Print? Media Accounts of Unproven Medical Treatments Across Time

Background: Looking through the lens of the media reveals much about how new biotechnologies are portrayed and how these reports influence public policy and opinion. The roles of patients, scientists, and the government loom large in this equation. These stakeholders tell us what is important to them and why. But little research exists comparing representations of new clinical technologies in the mainstream media across time. What has changed in newspaper accounts of new biotechnologies since the 1970s? How are the stakeholders portrayed, and what do these individuals have to say? Here, we seek to answer these questions by examining media reporting of Laetrile and stem cell transplants during the time of their clinical advent. Methods : Using a qualitative coding framework, we obtained frequencies of relevant excerpts and analyzed the data using the Mann–Whitney U test. Results: We saw significant differences in how stakeholders talk about their support and criticism of unproven treatments between the two...