Researchers say "press releases often promote research with uncertain relevance to human health."

According to a paper (5 May 2009 | Volume 150 Issue 9 | Pages 613-618) in the Annals of Internal Medicine, "press releases often promote research that has uncertain relevance to human health and do not provide key facts or acknowledge important limitations." Researchers examined press releases that 20 "academic medical centers sent out about their research, examining such details as whether they gave information on the studies' size, hard results numbers, and cautions about how solid the results are and what they mean." They found that "58 out of 200 releases, or 29 percent, exaggerated the findings' importance." Notably, "exaggeration was more common in releases about animal studies," as 195 "included quotes from the scientific investigators" of which 26 percent "were 'judged to overstate research importance,'" the study showed. But, the paper did not "look at how often exaggerated press releases actually resulted in exaggerated news reports."