"Cocaine Floods the Playground" and "Ok, Back To the Easy One"

Introduction

Newspapers and most of the press releases prefer to utilize big numbers in generating eye catching headlines.  They  work  on the business model  with the  need  of hidden scares, miracle  cure  and low shifts in percentage  that  will  never be adequate  for their readers sale to  their advertisers (Goldacre, 2008).  In that  at the point they  select the  sole  most  misleading  and melodramatic  way of  offering  deep  descriptions  of  any  increase  in statistical risk which is regarded  to  an increase in relative risk. For instance  the  general risk of having a heart attack due to high cholesterol  intake may  be 50 percent which may rise  by two percent  after more intake  but the media will report a double  increase (Goldacre, 2008).  This will best be demonstrated by both "Cocaine floods the playground" and "ok, back to the easy one".

According to the article titled cocaine floods the playground the utilization of addictive drugs mainly by children doubles annually. However,  the government  press release  survey’s  report  in which the  story  was  based upon  demonstrates almost zero changes  in the drug use  patterns,  smoking as well as  drinking since the  year 2000 (Goldacre, 2008). The reporting of the newspaper stated that the doubling was achieved from 1 up to 2 percent. However, the actual figures were 1.4 and 1.9 in 204 and 2005 respectively. This implies that the utilization of cocaine had not experienced any form of doubling since the increase was less than 1 percent which makes it insignificant (Goldacre, 2008).

The low increase  which is represented  by 0.5 percent  can be considered  to be important  only since it was generated  from an increased sample  of nine thousand which is similar to the tossing of  nine thousand coins.  It is apparent to almost every individual that that such studies that utilizes bigger samples implies that the generated results are more significant. The release of the report was a major reinterpretation of the report to establish a more impressive headline particularly for those with lower knowledge regarding statistical numbers (Goldacre, 2008).

Additionally  there are  several  simplified  strategies  of generating statistics that are  ridiculous  and the  primary  favorite  are  the selection  of  unusual  sample individuals group  and  focusing on asking  questions that are  rather  stupid (Goldacre, 2008). Most of the reports are particularly settled on bias since the unwilling or the non-respondents are the ones that are normally chased by the surveys.  For instance the  report  released  in 2007  that  doctors were planning  to make  revolts of the  governmental  plans  on permitting them  to  perform  surgical abortion surgeries  was  concluded based on the utilization  of  stupid  queries. For instance the question being whether doctors should carry out abortions in their surgeries is wrong since the query is not phrased correctly (Goldacre, 2008).

Based on the responses  provided  it is apparent that  the  doctors only  gave a thought mainly  on surgical  abortions rather  than the  relativity  of oral  and safer pills  for terminating the pregnancy. This lowers the  effectiveness  of the  research  since the questions  and the  report  achieved  cannot  be regarded  as  one that is significant in any way (Goldacre, 2008).

Discussion Question

Is it ethically right  for the media to sell  the readers  to their  advertisers  using  exaggerated  statistics  which creates impressive  headlines?

Is there a need for newspapers and major press release to be grounded on accurate statistical changes?

            Reference

Goldacre, B. (2008). Bad science. London: HarperCollins e-books.