Stroke Victims and Botox - Reading Between the Lines

As you well know, there is so much information to be found on the Internet that may -- or may not -- be true. Sometimes you'll find flat-out lies. Other times you'll find shades of truth. Either one can cause problems if we don't vet the "facts" we find.

Gary Schwitzer, professor at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism, is my go-to guy for review of news articles. He has a formula that helps discern how accurate, helpful or truthful a supposedly "scientific" article is. He gives health stories ratings of from one to five stars, with five stars being the best. Criteria include everything from whether conflicts of interest are disclosed, to whether both the benefits and the potential harms of the treatment are covered.

A good example of why stories need to be reviewed popped up on Dr. Schwitzer's blog this week -- a story from the New York Times that talks about botox and its off-label applications for stroke victims. It seems that at least one doctor was upset by that article, because he hears from patients frequently who think this treatment will free them from the bondages of stroke, when a botox treatment can't really help them.

That doctor is right. Not only is most of the five star information not there, the information that IS there has to make us pause. According to Dr. David M. Simpson, the doctor who is highlighted in the story, "only about 5 percent of the stroke patients who could benefit from" botox get botox.

You know, that may be absolutely true. But -- and here's where Dr. Simpson's credibility on that fact flies out the window: Dr. Simpson gets funding from three different botox producers.

Believe me, I don't share this information to suggest that botox can't be helpful to stroke patients, because it seems that for many, it can. I only share this to point out that even in very trustworthy news sources, we may not get all the information we need, or we need to take the information that seems gospel, and look for another source.

It's up to US to go behind the headlines to learn more. Only then is it time to discuss options with our doctors.

(Want to know how to find those most interesting articles? Learn how to set up News Alerts.)

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