Finally, somebody has done the legwork for Carol and I to show that the increased number of quick-to-market and "small n" medical studies are resulting in a lot of questionable information getting to the public. And, it doesn't even study how poorly these scientific studies are interpreted by the mass media...

Thanks to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for publishing an AP report citing a JAMA article (which hopefully won't be another one of these proven wrong).

The study reviewed 49 highly cited articles that appeared in JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and The Lancet that were cited in other media at least 1000 times each between 1990 and 2004.

The results were that of these articles, 16% were later contradicted in other articles and 16% showed significantly reduced effects in later articles.