Where are reporters when you want them?

I just attended three (partial) days of an amazing conference where doctors from around the world were presenting fascinating information, including explaining how they came to question practices they’d had for years — even decades — before something caused them to question what they were doing. There were a few camera crews, and I’m told an NPR affiliate was at NVIC’s Fourth International Public Conference on Vaccination on Friday, but apparently there was no one from the press in the room today.

Dr. Gary Null called the missing press out by name. How can people make informed decisions if they don’t even know this debate is going on? Null recounted another time he and his alternative health efforts were stood up by mainstream media after he’d conducted research that found ways of building the immune system that helped people afflicted with AIDS. Null said he held a press conference that featured 100 patients — what he refers to as AIDS survivors in this 1995 article) — whose symptoms had been cleared up by natural methods and not one member of the press attended. I was still in college then, and maybe he’s exaggerating (he was pretty worked up!), but it was pretty strikingly apparent today that this huge and important conference wasn’t going to get much, if any, coverage in the mainstream media. Null (and probably others) would say that’s because of the power of the pharmaceutical industry over the media.

I’m sure, though, we’ll read about it in Mothering and at The One Click Group, crucial components of the the new health journalism.