Steve Milloy Slams Washington Post Coverage of Soft Drinks/Obesity Link
In an article for the Cato Institute, Steve Milloy notes that The Washington Post seems to shift its standards of statistical significance depending upon whether or not it is covering a “politically correct” study.
Case in point is The Post’s coverage of the debate over whether or not soft drinks contribute to obesity among young people. Milloy notes that a recent Post news article championed a supposedly independent study that found that children who had one daily serving of soft drinks had a 1.6 greater risk of being obese. The Post reporter wrote that this study, “demonstrates a strong link between soda consumption and childhood obesity.”
Which is completely inconsistent with what has appeared in the past in The Post on another contentious risk — the alleged one between abortion and cancer. People who believe abortion increases the risk of a woman developing cancer rely on studies that tend to show women who have had abortions have a 1.5 greater risk of developing cancer than women who have not. Did The Post report that this study “demonstrates a strong link” between abortion and cancer? Of course not. They rightly dismissed such studies, noting that “Though this may appear to be a large increase in risk, it falls in the barely detectable range.”
In fact as Milloy points out, any risk factor less than 2.0 is simply not statistically significant, but for some reason media outlets such as The Post instead pick and choose which risk factors below 2.0 are not relevant, and moreover they seem to do so based on political ideologies rather than any serious scientific look at an issue.
Source:
Hard bias over soft drinks. Steven Milloy, Cato Institute, June 18, 2001.
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