An Open Letter to the Media:

Stop it. Just stop it. The press, television, radio and the blogosphere latch on to every new study and report it as though the results were definitive.

Here’s a perfect example:

Heavy coffee consumption linked to higher death risk – USA Today

Oh, wait – that’s from USA today, the “thinking man’s National Enquirer” (women not exempt either), so probably wise to take anything you read there with a whole box of salt. But seriously, folks:

NIH study finds that coffee drinkers have lower risk of death – National Institutes of Health

Just go out there and do your own research: butter, eggs, chocolate, vitamins, sugar, white flour – and we’re not even talking about the tinfoil hat patent-medicine and nostrums hawked by the populist doctors and talk-show hosts like “green coffee beans” ^[1] and the Açaí Berry – just the run-of-the-mill, everyday stuff; it’s good for you, it’s bad for you, it stops cancer, it causes cancer, it gives you diabetes, it lowers cholesterol, and on and on and on to the lemniscate ^[2].

As it turns out, most of what the media reports is nothing like the actual conclusions found in the study. Put together a database of 50 peer-reviewed studies, each double-blind, placebo-based and randomized, and if there’s a preponderance of evidence, *then* report on it. Oh, but wait, truth is not as important as eyeballs on ads. Yarg.

This wolverine is angry

[1] In fairness, this particular article pretty much debunks the hype and asks the right questions, but there are plenty of others out there trumpeting the benefits as though this was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[2] ∞