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Our goal: to provide rapid, reliable news and insight about the news
Chief medical editor, Alan Garber, MD, PhD, discusses the changes at Endocrine Today.
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No one can deny that the 24-hour news cycle has improved our awareness of events and issues in our everyday life. All too often, however, the scope of news coverage is shallow and, frankly, quite narrow in its focus.
Negatives abound in detail, while careful analysis is nowhere to be found. Nothing better typifies this regrettable trend than the evolution of the news surrounding the rosiglitazone (Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline) meta-analysis published last June.
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In a complicated and highly selective meta-analysis, there seemed to be a suggestion of increased ischemic risk with this antidiabetic agent. Soon this point spiraled out of control as a multitude of authorities layered more and more speculation and analysis upon this issue. Every day seemed to have its own new twist on the evolution of this story.
Ultimately, most practitioners seemed unable to make sense of the issue and simply put it on hold in their minds, while hoping for clarification from the FDA. Even when provided, such clarification was soon followed by further publications and opinions.
Help, not hype, is needed
To those of us at Endocrine Today, it seemed apparent that this episode had become emblematic of what is needed and not needed today; namely, help for the busy practitioner, not more hype.
In this spirit, we at Endocrine Today have decided to change our format and publication policy to become a timelier newspaper appearing twice monthly rather than monthly.
We believe that this is an interval better suited for timely reporting of new and important issues, while also allowing adequate time for careful analysis and insight development to occur before bringing the news to the medical public.
Clearly, we can never become an instant messaging service, but then another one of those is not now needed. Instead, we hope to become a rapid and reliable source of not only news, but of analysis and insight into the meaning of the news and what its impact may be upon health care practitioners.
That clearly fills an unoccupied space at the present time. To do this, we have expanded our Editorial Board and developed new methods of news reporting in print and online to better meet the needs of the busy practitioner.
Let us know as we evolve to this new format the extent to which we have succeeded in meeting your needs, or give us suggestions about how we can improve. After all, we wish to waste neither your time nor ours.