Bruce DuMont, a distinguished media critic and commentator, was one of several speakers at Heartland’s Thirteenth Anniversary Benefit and Dinner. He told conservatives and libertarians to stop blaming “media bias” for the way the press treats our ideas, and instead to blame ourselves for not doing a better job advising and informing reporters.
Having watched the press mangle, distort, or just plain ignore my words for the past thirteen years, I am not sure I agree with Mr. DuMont. Nevertheless, I am willing to give his advice a try. Today I am adopting John H. Cushman Jr., a reporter for The New York Times. I plan to monitor his writing, send him Heartland publications, and send him friendly little letters from time to time suggesting ways he can improve his craft.
My first letter to Mr. Cushman follows. I will report to you any response I get.
Dear Mr. Cushman:
I couldn’t help but notice, while reading your September 29 article titled “U.S. Reshaping Cancer Strategy As Incidence in Children Rises,” that you missed a few points and, perhaps, went a little outside the bounds of careful reporting. A friend of mine thought you’d be open to some suggestions, so here goes nothing.
Less-than-Honest Rhetorical Device
The news you report is that “new chemicals in the environment” may be responsible for “striking double-digit increases” in childhood cancer rates. The article’s subheadings include “increase may be tied to new chemicals in environment” and “disturbing trend is likely to bring more Federal money for research.”
I have noticed that some writers use a phrase such as “but many experts suspect” to distract readers from an admission that key data are missing, or that key facts contradict the author’s claims. I noticed a few variations on this phrase in your article. For example, the first paragraph of your article reads: “The rate of cancer among American children has been rising for decades. Although the reasons remain unclear, many experts suspect the increase may be partly the result of growing exposure to new chemicals in the environment.”
Later, you tell us that “although the causes are not known and are probably many, some experts say toxins . . . are prime suspects.”
It seems to me that this is a less-than-honest rhetorical device. Either the causes are not known or toxins are prime suspects: both statements cannot be true.
Lack of Supporting Evidence
Except for two references to household pesticides late in the article, you never identify the “new chemicals” that might be suspect. In fact, your article implies that every chemical is suspect (“the whole collection of chemicals out there, mostly untested for toxicity to humans, let alone for possible cancerous effects in children.”)
You also do not present evidence that exposure to these chemicals is rising. Measuring exposure, as you undoubtedly know, is one of the key requirements of epidemiology–the study of diseases. Why even raise the possibility that rising exposure to chemicals might be harming children if you have no data concerning exposure?
Early in the article, you refer to “striking double-digit increases” in the rates of some childhood cancers. But the first graph accompanying your article shows no increase in overall childhood cancer rates during the last ten years (1984 – 1994). The same graph shows a steadily falling cancer fatality rate during the same period. Your graphs showing rates for the two most common kinds of childhood cancer also show flat or falling rates since 1984 and falling death rates in both cases. Maybe you forgot to rewrite the article after data surfaced that contradicted your thesis?
Leading cancer experts, including Sir Richard Doll and Dr. Richard Peto, have concluded that rising cancer rates in the U.S. (other than for lung cancer, where heavy smoking has been identified as a major cause, and a few other specific types of cancers) are a statistical mirage caused by our growing ability to correctly diagnosis cancer cases. Simply put, we find more cases of cancer because we spend more time and money looking for them. Fatality rates, these experts say, are a more reliable guide to true cancer rates, although even they also tend to rise over time due to better diagnostic techniques.
If this is so, the data you present showing declining childhood cancer fatality rates buttress the position of those who say the environment is getting cleaner and safer over time. Shouldn’t you have said as much in your article?
Elsewhere in the article you say the rate of one kind of childhood cancer has fallen for boys but risen for girls. Isn’t this an unlikely phenomenon if exposure to chemicals is the cause?
Strong Probability of … Nothing
The nearest you come to making the case that exposure to man-made chemicals is responsible for any cases of childhood cancer is when you quote a government scientist saying “the strong probability exists that environmental factors are playing a role” in childhood cancers. But this is a meaningless statement since the nature of the “role” is left unaddressed.
Come to think of it, isn’t this just another rhetorical trick? Putting an emphatic adjective (“strong”) and a passive verb (“playing”) in the same sentence conveys the impression of scientific certainty. Yet the sentence as a whole cannot say anything stronger than its weakest part.
I commend you for telling readers that “environmental factors” include diet and lifestyle. You do not tell readers, however, that most experts believe diet and lifestyle are responsible for the lion’s share of cancers. Doll and Peto, for example, estimate that diet accounts for 35 percent of all cancers and lifestyle accounts for another 40 percent. They attribute less than 3 percent of all cancers to exposure to pollution, food additives, and industrial products.
Written Too Soon?
Having captured our attention with unfounded claims and adamant but meaningless testimony, you let us down by saying “many years” of research will be needed to confirm or disprove such “suspicions.” Did it occur to you, when you wrote that sentence, that you were writing your article “many years” too soon?
Near the end of the article, you describe in some detail two studies that “suggest” exposure to home pesticides “may be associated with some types of childhood cancer.” You admit these studies have severe shortcomings (e.g., small sample sizes, crude estimates of exposure). Why, if the research is so flawed, did you decide to report it at all? Isn’t reporting junk science, and then admitting to its flaws, sort of like repeating gossip?
Since I plan to do some writing on this subject myself, I would appreciate your reactions to my remarks, as well as your own suggestions back to me. And let me know if I can be of further assistance.
