The rise in use of food supplements based on botanical ingredients (herbal supplements) is depicted as part of a trend empowering consumers to manage their day-to-day health needs, which presupposes access to clear and accurate information to make effective choices. Evidence regarding herbal supplement efficacy is extremely variable so recent regulations eliminating unsubstantiated claims about potential effects leave producers able to provide very little information about their products. Medical practitioners are rarely educated about herbal supplements and most users learn about them via word-of-mouth, allowing dangerous misconceptions to thrive, chief among them the assumption that natural products are inherently safe. Print media is prolific among the information channels still able to freely discuss herbal supplements. This study thematically analyses how 76 newspaper/magazine articles from the UK, Romania and Italy portray the potential risks and benefits of herbal supplements. Most articles referenced both risks and benefits and were factually accurate but often lacked context and impartiality. More telling was how the risks and benefits were framed in service of a chosen narrative, the paucity of authoritative information allowing journalists leeway to recontextualise herbal supplements in ways that serviced the goals and values of their specific publications and readerships. Providing sufficient information to empower consumers should not be the responsibility of print media, instead an accessible source of objective information is required.

BackgroundThe popularity of botanical products is on the rise in Europe, with consumers using them to complement their diets or to maintain health, and products are taken in many different forms (e.g. teas, juices, herbal medicinal products, plant food supplements (PFS)). However there is a scarcity of data on the usage of such products at European level.ObjectiveTo provide an overview of the characteristics and usage patterns of PFS consumers in six European countries.DesignData on PFS usage were collected in a cross-sectional, retrospective survey of PFS consumers using a bespoke frequency of PFS usage questionnaire.Subjects/settingA total sample of 2359 adult PFS consumers from Finland, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom.Data analysesDescriptive analyses were conducted, with all data stratified by gender, age, and country. Absolute frequencies, percentages and 95% confidence intervals are reported.ResultsOverall, an estimated 18.8% of screened survey respondents used at least one PFS. Characteristics of PFS consumers included being older, well-educated, never having smoked and self-reporting health status as "good or very good". Across countries, 491 different botanicals were identified in the PFS products used, with Ginkgo biloba (Ginkgo), Oenothera biennis (Evening primrose) and Cynara scolymus (Artichoke) being most frequently reported; the most popular dose forms were capsules and pills/tablets. Most consumers used one product and half of all users took single-botanical products. Some results varied across countries.ConclusionsThe PlantLIBRA consumer survey is unique in reporting on usage patterns of PFS consumers in six European countries. The survey highlights the complexity of measuring the intake of such products, particularly at pan-European level. Incorporating measures of the intake of botanicals in national dietary surveys would provide much-needed data for comprehensive risk and benefit assessments at the European level.

Objectives Community pharmacists are the most accessible healthcare professionals. They interact with a large number of patients who often show emotional concern. Their stressful and complex role is widely acknowledged, nonetheless research on their personal life is practically non-existent. Thus, we set out to qualitatively explore the emotional perceptions of pharmacists.Methods Twenty experienced pharmacists were interviewed by a psychologist and a pharmacist. Data were analysed using an interpretative phenomenological analysis and coded using NVivo qualitative data analysis software.Key findings Interviewed pharmacists admitted to different types of difficulties, mostly arising from a series of small, standalone episodes. Their stories describe intrinsic difficulties with their practice, rather than personal experiences. This study reveals the complexity of a community pharmacists' role-divided into health and hygiene advice, counselling and empathic relationships, and entrepreneurship. An important obstacle is the integration and concomitant implementation of these components. Endogenous factors such as personal experiences, personality and academic background, and exogenous factors such as social status of the patient population, legal and administrative issues and location, all affect pharmacists' ability to cope with their role.Conclusions Improving health care can be obtained by incorporating community pharmacists into the healthcare team. Technical training is important in order to improve relationship skills and personal coping strategies. Further studies are recommended to provide a simple tool for measuring aspects of the personal and emotional aspects (inner life) of a community pharmacist.

OBJECTIVEThis survey involved medical reporters to identify degrees of theoretical and actual compliance to recommendations for health reporting.METHODSThe questionnaire was addressed to 450 Italian journalists and obtained a redemption of 23.1%.RESULTSMajor gaps between theoretical agreement and professional practice were: need of scientific background and continuing education; importance of avoiding sensationalism, assessment of scientific protocols and results, reporting of results as absolute risk and numbers needed to treat, attention to the conflict of interest. Two homogeneous profiles emerged. Group 1 includes journalists working in newspapers and shows a large gap between theory and practice. Group 2 includes mainly journalists working in technical medical media and shows a higher consistency between the two settings.DISCUSSIONAn improvement in theoretical understanding of medical literature is advisable, but interventions are needed in the working practice in particular in newspapers, a setting where approaches are more difficult.

Background: in 2009 a novel infective agent, A(H1N1), was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a pandemic virus. Like most European countries, Italy experienced a single pandemic wave during fall-winter 2009. The objective of our study was to evaluate the news reports and the representation of the A(H1N1) pandemic in the Italian newspapers both quantitatively and qualitatively.Methods: from April 24th, 2009 to February 28th, 2010, seven national newspapers were monitored for the quantitative reporting of A(H1N1). In a three month sample period, reports were evaluated qualitatively by considering their front page presence, tones used for headlines, and images and figures dedicated to the topic.Results: in a ten month window, a total of 1220 articles were published. The reporting period showed four peaks and one hollow, with a similar pattern for all the newspapers. During the three-month sample period, we found a total of 382 articles, 98.4% of which appeared on front pages, 33.8% of which contained headlines using alarming tones, and 47.8% which contained info-graphic elements.Conclusions: the A(H1N1) 2009 pandemic in Italy was mild; nonetheless, newspapers devoted great attention to the new influenza and used alarmist tones. In similar situations, there are several areas where scientists should play a greater role. Scientists should support journalists in understanding scientific issues and help them translate scientific information into news items. Scientists should also help to contain the anxiety aroused in lay people by a pandemic, and support vaccination efforts dedicated to it.

Objective: Media are a main source of medical information for the public, as well as for decision makers. This scenario demands a good selection of stories and correct medical reporting.Design: Our study aimed to analyze if journalistic guidelines or similar documents were already available and whether they provided satisfactory advice for appropriate communication in the field, and to detail recommendations which could become a reference working document.Methodology: Sources for this paper were obtained from PubMed and from websites ( and related links) of organizations known to be working in the area of health reporting. Documents providing recommendations for the activity were analyzed and compared through a scheme including nine macro-categories relevant to the selection, verification and building of the story, considering scientific and journalistic issues. The scheme was derived from the most complete document. We then compiled a comprehensive list of recommendations merging the contents of the documents considered and our professional experience.Results: Nine existing guidelines and similar documents representing the worldwide situation were compared. All the documents examined provided interesting indications. Some of these indications shared the basic principles of mainstream journalism ( reliability and independence of sources); others were more specific, such as the understanding of the scientific method and its jargon, the need to avoid extrapolations and to understand the difference between in vitro and animal studies and clinical trials, statistical parameters, and so on. Most of the topics specific for health communication are concepts which can be grasped only with an adequate scientific background and continuing education. The nature and level of the details provided by these documents vary considerably and in most cases can be fully understood only by experienced journalists with a relevant background.Discussion: Our proposal provides a useful tool listing nearly 70 recommendations ranging from the education of journalists, to all the aspects of selection, understanding and translating of medical and drug information deriving from scientific reports. It is intended for a journalist with a biomedical background, and therefore highlights critical issues without providing detailed descriptions. The proposal endeavors to answer to the main criticisms of medical journalism, particularly the use of sources, the verification of clinical value, the need to follow up on the story. Our work focuses on the prerequisite for a medical journalist to acquire the knowledge that enables him to assess the results of pharmacological and medical research in order to accurately and reliably convey his message to a lay reader. The strength of our working paper derives from the preliminary 'benchmarking' of existing documents, as suggested in the literature, but even more so from the concerted effort of the authors, who represent the key stakeholders of the system ( researchers, academic teachers, medical journalists and publishers).Conclusion: Our work identifies the major issues entailed in correct health reporting, and constitutes a step forward in overcoming existing barriers between scientists and journalists. The aim is to encourage the mediation of 'public-centred' information, which limits the false hopes and expectations that may arise due to communication problems between the two worlds.

BACKGROUND Health authorities, hospitals, commercial enterprises, and mass media all deliver health and medical communication in different forms. With such a vast amount of biomedical and clinical information available, any action to ensure the spread of clinically relevant news items is welcome. OBJECTIVES This paper tries to define a new role for health science librarians in improving medical communication and reporting. METHODS Literature relating to the health and medical reporting is analysed to identify major difficulties encountered by health communicators. RESULTS There are two areas where health science librarians can develop new roles in health communication: (i) supporting journalists and health communicators in selecting sources and understanding scientific papers, and (ii) directly translating scientific information into news items, supplying a list of products in this direction (i.e. targeted newsletters, media releases, news items). New skills and competencies needed to cope with the new roles are described in detail in a suggested academic curriculum for health communicators. CONCLUSIONS A better understanding of the mass media's needs can provide much needed support in the field of health communication.

Information disseminated by the media influences not only individual health behaviour, but also health-care utilization and health policies.1 Internationally, the news media are an important source of information on medicine and new medical treatments for readers, including physicians and scientists.2 There are concerns that the selection of topics, and consequently the coverage, may not: always be accurate;3 depict the real achievements in medicine described in the literature;4 cover the real needs of the patient; correspond to the need of the reader (the so-called agenda).5 The international position is also representative of Italy.6 A good journalist has to be able to access the latest information (the sources), analyse and filter it, assessing its quality and authoritativeness, whilst dealing with ever-increasing sources of information.1,6 While the impact factor gives a partial picture of the scientific importance of a given medical journal,7 the criteria for filtering medical evidence likely to become ‘news’ are less stringent. The criteria are discretional and connected to the ‘values’ of journalism (singularity, practical importance, consequences on life, geographical implications, emotions, possibility of development, sense of expectation). The annual increase in the amount of published research poses major difficulties. Overall results of research are increasing by 5% per year, published pages by 7–8% per year and the total of number of journals 12 000 to 20 000 (equal to 1–2 million of articles depending on the evaluation criteria).8 Journalists are also faced with time constraints9 which make it difficult for them to scan even a few scientific journals. The research agenda of our Centre is to analyse communication to different target groups in order to improve the quality of information on health. A pilot project commenced aimed at providing alerts to papers on medical topics from the scientific literature. This was in response to requests made by some Italian scientific journalists at a press conference. The need they expressed was clearly consistent with our objectives. The alerting service was designed using predefined criteria as far as possible. Medical journals were selected on the basis of their impact factor. In the years 2001–2003, the selection of papers was discretional or based on their editorial comments. In 2004 and 2005, various publisher's press alerts where available. Articles were selected when they had received an editorial comment or had been mentioned in the original press alerts from publishers. Particular attention was given to Italian authors. All papers on medicine published in Nature and Science were alerted (in view of the interest indicated by our ‘Observatory of the lay press’—see below) and full papers available on the web were considered. Tables of contents were drawn up from subscriptions to email services provided by publishers; these were assessed by a biomedical graduate, formally trained with a master's degree in scientific communication and journalism.10 Alerts were based on the timely publication of selected titles linked to full papers in a password-protected website, and in some cases the alert was highlighted by a descriptive editorial summary (in Italian) of the original paper. During a test period, the suitability of selections and conformity of abstracts to original papers were checked by senior staff of the Master Course in Scientific Communication. In 2002, our group established an ‘Observatory on lay press’ to check for news articles dealing with medicine and health. The aims of the Observatory are to monitor trends in dissemination of health information and the progress of biomedical research. The newspapers considered are those with high distribution in Italy. Staff read newspapers, identify articles, classify them according to topics, categorize to defined quantitative and qualitative indicators and input data in a specific database. Where there is a disagreement between operators, a senior researcher is consulted. Only scientific articles aiming to inform or educate the general public were considered. Articles on health policy and economics, letters from readers, books reviews, and local news are excluded. The concepts ‘health and medicine’ were defined strictly, excluding news items on fitness, welfare, or body care. Four widely circulated Italian newspapers and their supplements were considered (Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, Stampa and Giornale) and the periods of prospective observations were May 2002 (four consecutive weeks), March–April 2003 (eight consecutive weeks), March–May 2004 (eight consecutive weeks) and October 2004–March 2005 (26 consecutive weeks). Some levels of analysis were undertaken. The quantitative analysis involved recording the number of articles and their classification by topics. Predefined assessment parameters were also recorded, such as position, space and completeness of news. Qualitative analysis was based on indicators of importance, completeness, and authoritativeness of the information offered by the newspapers. To judge authoritativeness, the following criteria were used: the quality of the original source; expertise of the author; comments or explanations delivered by an expert on the topic. Complete results obtained in this project are being described elsewhere. This paper refers to the articles selected and alerted in 49 months (from October 2001 to the end of October 2005) from eight established international journals (Table 1) which published 5849 original papers in the study period. Overall, the service issued alerts on 2326 papers. Of the alerts, 2108 were from medical journals and 218 were from scientific journals (39.7%): 119 papers in the last quarter of 2001, corresponding to 39.6 per month, 437 in 2002 (36.4 per month), 436 in 2003 (36.3 per month), 492 in 2004 (41.0 per month) and 842 (84.2 per month) in the first 10 months of 2005. Figure 1 shows the numbers and percentages of papers selected and alerted from the various journals; the ranking order of journals as sources was New England Journal of Medicine, BMJ, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, Nature, Science, Journal of the National Cancer Institute and Annals of Internal Medicine. A discretional grouping under 22 headings shows that cardiology and cardiovascular diseases were the most widely selected topics, followed by bacterial infections, virus and immune system diseases and transplants, neoplasms, psychiatric and psychological disorders, neonatology, female genital diseases and assisted fertilization. (Table 2). A large number of papers on virology were selected, particularly in 2003, the year of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic. Most of them came from New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet. The ‘miscellaneous’ class covers a wide range of topics, such as stem cells (ten alerts), drug abuse (eight alerts) and allergy (six alerts). Alerts on articles, by journal, between October 2001 and October 2005 (number selected and percentage of total selected papers) The evidence deriving from this alerting service has been compared with another project going on at our site, the ‘Observatory on medicine and health as dealt in the lay press’. The indirect comparison between our two projects (the Alerting Service and the ‘Observatory on lay press on health and medicine’) has made it possible to assess the interest of newspaper editorial offices for the topics selected by the alerting service. The two projects show a relative similarity in topics chosen and published by newspapers and those selected and alerted (Fig. 2). The proportions of coverage, however, are less similar: some topics were over-emphasised by the media, while others have no media attention at all. Alerts on articles, by main topics between October 2001 and October 2005 (% of total) compared with the Observatory on lay press (range between May 2002 and March 2005, various periods) Internationally the following activities have been proposed to improve the quality of scientific and medical news in terms of selection and content: collaboration between scientists and journalists;11 websites of press releases (such as Eureka Alert and Alpha Galileo);12 direct alerts from publishers, such as BMJ;13 academic education;14 specific guidelines such as the Royal Society of Science;15 workshops for scientific journalists.16 Three main aspects4 are involved in the quality of news on health for the public: selection of topics; selection of the medical articles to which to refer; appropriate ‘assembly’ of contents by journalists. Our alerts system tried to cover these aspects by the selection of medical literature with implications for health, and providing extended Italian abstracts. The service was expected to be objective, authoritative, timely, relevant for the Italian population, and to provide items with real news value. These are conventional criteria used by news media gatekeepers to establish the newsworthiness of an item (impact, timeliness, proximity, emotion).17 Timeliness was the weakest point and could have been improved by sending notices on each article, with its abstract, by email, instead of providing a web-based service. Because of a lack of resources, we suffered some delay in implementing metrics on the website, so we could not directly trace the actual numbers of accesses to the service. It was also impossible to survey the journalists accessing the site to verify the percentage of alerted articles which were used as news. This could have been a basis for decisions on whether to renew this service and increase the number of medical and scientific journals used as sources of information. Indirect comparison with the Observatory on medicine and health as dealt with in the lay press did give a means of indirectly assessing the newspaper editorial offices’ interest in the topics selected by the alerting service. Internationally, a series of activities have been designed to improve the quality of scientific and medical news in terms of selection and content. Expected features of the service were objectiveness, independence, authoritativeness, timeliness, relevance for the Italian population and value as news. Any activity in this direction, such as our alerting service, is useful to improve the quality of health-related news reaching the general public, both in terms of topics, selection of original sources, and contents of news articles. The data on the alerting service are published thanks to the sponsor AstraZeneca SpA, Basiglio, Milano, Italy that authorized us to disseminate the results of the project. Implications for Policy An innovative added-value service to promote librarians’ skills and activities. Medical journalists as a new high-profile customer target, requiring services and education. A bridge between medical science and media, focusing on citizens’ and patients’ needs. Implications for Practice A new view of the assessment of medical information, moving from scientific interest through clinical implications to communication to citizens and patients. Need for understanding the basics of journalism (information, education, entertainment) and the difference between a fact and a news item, so as to grasp the values of the news. Need for understanding the citizens’ and patients’ agenda (i.e. their real information need).

The lay public's interest in scientific topics, particularly anything concerning health, medicine and drugs, is growing continuously throughout the world.1 The huge variety of information sources available, including the Internet, has meant that patients now tend to be more informed and motivated and take a much more active role in their health care. The impact of the wealth of information spread by the mass media and available on the Web is clear. It influences not only individual health behaviour, but also health-care utilization and health policies.2 Doctors are finding that well-informed patients who understand the nature of their illness and its treatment are likely to get well faster and have a better quality of life, and the empowerment of patients is a dominant feature shaping their relationship with health providers.3 According to the international literature, people obtain more health information from magazines and newspapers than from any other source, even their doctors. In Europe, citizens’ sources of information on health are the television, school, scientific journals and the press.4 Italy has seen a steady increase in the numbers of lay periodicals devoting space to medicine and those specialized or fully dedicated to health and well-being. The popularity of news on topics related to health and quality of life is second only to sports news. Some television programmes on health and medicine boast average audiences never less than 246 000, with prime-time peaks of two million and more.5 Like medication, information carries risks as well as benefits. Where there is information there is also misinformation; coverage may be inaccurate or over-enthusiastic, as concluded by the first systematic content analysis of a random sample of news articles on specific drugs.6 Responsible reporting by journalists can illuminate important issues for the general public that might have remained buried in the scientific arena. However, results that are misinterpreted, misrepresented or both can generate confusion and panic in the general population.7 Doctors want to have time to evaluate any important report and see it in context, and they are never comfortable with basing clinical advice on the reports as a news media.8 However, physicians too rely in part on the media to learn about new studies, especially those outside their specialty areas. Physicians also want to see the news that their patients are seeing.8 Unpublished evidence collected by this Centre indicates that, in Italy, the number of news items on medicine appearing in the four most widely read daily newspapers and their supplements in May 2002 totalled over 400, more than half making reference to a scientific publication or congress. However, Italians are not undiscerning consumers of this information: some 30% consider that the media are confusing, giving information that is too vague, and 18% believe that the information is likely to be biased by conflicts of interest. For information on diseases, if the disease is very severe the doctor's role is still unchallenged (94%), compared with that of the media. (4%). Even for minor complaints the doctor still holds first place (66%), ahead of the media (16%).9 Well aware of this interest, the media devote ample space to articles on health, medicine and welfare. In Italy, the more public interest for health-related issues has grown, the more competent journalists have dropped out of the scene. In the 1980s and 1990s an editorial office was organized with a group of senior editors and dozens of journalists, the so-called ‘specialists’, who specialized in one particular segment of society and presented its tensions, interests and problems. With the advent of new technologies and the telematics revolution, this large group of journalists has split into two: there are the assistant senior editors and the ‘news-desk’ people (sub-editors who ‘pick out’ news items from press agencies and adapt them to the space available), handling only secondary information, which in most cases is produced outside the editorial offices. In the early 1980s, editorial offices received 400–500 news items a day on average. Nowadays, they are likely to get 6000–7000 items, a 10-fold increase compared with 20 years ago. Media managers are obliged to make a large number of decisions every day. Pages are edited and changed in the space of a few minutes, chasing the latest interesting item in the uninterrupted spate of information landing on their desks. This inflation has had a price: the number of specialist editors in any editorial office has dropped. Experience is confined to supplements, which tend to separate actual competence from the ‘news factory’.10 Consequently the choice of articles appearing in the mass media is not based on a precise agenda for citizens’ health, but is affected by the whole body of facts/news issued by the press agencies, by the nature of a fact as ‘news’, by the choices made by the editorial staff meeting assembling the issue, and journalists’ ability to defend their pieces so they find room in the current issue. Even a normal fact can become news: an event becomes news when it is somehow unusual or peculiar. There are seven basic categories of media events that have news value and can be written up as newsworthy11: an unusual or peculiar event (a dog biting a man), even in relation to the target (a man marrying four women might make the news in Europe, but not in an Arab Emirate); something with practical implications in everyday life (the advent of the Euro currency); an item with potential consequences for everyday life and everybody's interests (weather forecast); an event with physical and psychological proximity (something happening in our own nation strikes us more than a similar event in a distant country); an item that arouses emotions and creates expectation (news on medical advances belong to this category); exclusive and timely items. There are three other broad areas for media events12: human interest (solidarity and charity, love of children or animals); progress, particularly advances referring to science, medicine, or general culture, such as space exploration, discoveries of drugs, etc.); social prominence when the actors are VIPs or come from important countries (the same news has different weight if it comes from a powerful nation or an undeveloped or remote country). Journalism aims to inform, educate and give pleasure. These three components are applied in different proportions in relation to the target and the editorial policy of each publication. Even if the concept of ‘giving pleasure’ is sometimes applied in health campaigns to help people remember ‘messages’, doctors’ aims are in fact restricted to informing and educating. From the international literature and a survey of medical journalists in 37 countries, through focus groups, several barriers have been identified in correct communication to improve the informative and educational value of medical journalism13: lack of time; space and knowledge; competition for space and audience; difficulties with terminology; problem finding and using sources; problems with editors and commercialization. Lack of time, space and knowledge were the most common obstacles. The importance of different obstacles varied with the type of experience and media. Moreover, many health reporters have difficulty finding independent experts willing to give them time, and editors need more education in critically assessing medical news. Whereas the world of science still attaches great weight to the authority of the source, which is quantified using objective criteria based on the numbers of citations, and presented as an ‘impact factor’,14 journalism has no such clear criteria. A Swedish study in which 110 scientific journalists were asked to specify their main indicators of professional quality found that sources of information were ranked third, after respect for facts and a sense of professional responsibility.15 Scientific reporting could be improved by extending to information sources the concepts of the new ‘precision journalism’, an approach that holds that scientific methods should be extrapolated to journalism.16 There are several fundamental points that a good scientific journalist, like any scientist, must know: how to find the latest information (the sources), how to assess it (quality and authoritativeness, preliminary results), how to analyse and filter it (selection), how to use it best (without extrapolation of the results), how to render it accessible and useful to the general public (dissemination), and how to deal with information biased by conflict of interest. The information provided by the mass media distorts the interaction between doctor and patient, by focusing on the ‘news’ aspect more than on necessary diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Any tool that helps doctors set up a correct relationship is welcome. As a centre for studies on drug communication, we have been asked to design an alerting service for general practitioners on health and medical news published in the lay press. The preliminary project involves scanning the top newspapers and their medical supplements, and the main women's magazines every day, for a total of six newspapers, three medical supplements and four women's magazines. Topics will be selected for their importance and clinical implications and structured under empirically selected headings and therapeutic areas. Doctors will receive an e-mail alert including the following for each selected article: newspaper or magazine publishing the news; descriptive titles, titles implying the results; indicative abstracts; information on the original publication or congress (references and links to newspaper articles and scientific papers, when available); any indication of potential conflict of interest. On request, full texts of the news and scientific papers cited will be provided. In designing our project, we have based our calculation efforts on our experience deriving from a pilot project carried out on the four main national newspapers and intended to monitor the trend of health news in the national press. We have considered some of the major national newspapers (Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, La Repubblica, Il Giornale) and their three supplements on science and/or health (Corriere Salute, Salute di Repubblica, Tutto Scienze e Tecnologia-TST). Between 2002 and 2004, in a sample period, we have identified a total of 420, 450 and 305 news items monthly. For our files, we shall record the main features of the news item: the position of the article (first page, second page, etc.); the position of the article on the page (left, right, top, bottom, etc.); numbers of columns and length, continued on page … ; interviews, scientific articles cited, explanatory boxes, glossaries. Iconography, graphics and other details are recorded for internal statistical reasons. In our opinion, this news alert could be integrated into the portfolio of the added-value services delivered by health libraries, replacing or integrating traditional services that in certain settings may be becoming obsolete with the advent of new technologies. Our project can be easily implemented with attention to three critical areas. First, the design of a broad classification suitable to collect all the subjects dealt with by the press considered, which could allow to have subcategories for specific items for specific and seasonal subjects (such as SARS, pandemic influenza, etc.). To solve this issue, an approach could be to define the classification after a short test. A few papers are published in literature on the quality of medical journalistic articles, but there is no publication on how to classify them. Second, all the aspects relating to the main features of the news items (such as the position in the newspaper or magazine, number of columns, etc.) can be interesting only if the service supplier is specializing in media communication. Finally, while it is easy to identify the articles of interest, scanning and reading the material can be rather time-consuming and is not easily forecast. In our experience, the time requested varies considerably among operators, as a result of scientific background and culture and personal skills. However, during our pilot project, all the operators improved their capacity of scanning and reading, reducing the time necessary to identify, choose and classify articles. In the absence of other published quantitative evidence for Italy and other countries, we are provided with figures just as an indication of the workload. As a marginal note, 60% of articles referred to the original source (main scientific journals, health authorities and other renowned institutions). In 2004, the main topics were related to psychiatry and psychology, cardiology and cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, gynaecology and assisted fertilization for newspapers; nutrition and oncology are the key subjects in inserts. This alert service has been designed for doctors, but could be useful for patients too if the news item is commented on with an indication of its clinical relevance. The idea of this project could be extended to other media such as radio and TV programming; obviously this implies that the necessary facilities must be available—recording of programmes, etc.—and adequate resources and logistics, which are still rather unusual for a typical medical library. Implications for Policy An innovative and interesting addition to the portfolio of products and services of health libraries. An example of diversification of library services. An enhanced visibility for libraries. A useful service for doctors, helping them to get closer to their patients, grasp their approach to medicine and whenever necessary correct it. Implications for Practice Skills of librarians in health libraries are adequate to provide this service. An accurate evaluation of resources involved is required. The supply of the service through e-mail messages is simple, inexpensive and not greatly time-consuming.

Throughout the world the public is showing increasing interest in medical and scientific subjects and journalists largely spread this information, with an important impact on knowledge and health. Clearly, therefore, the relationship between the journalist and his sources is delicate: freedom and independence of information depend on the independence and truthfulness of the sources. The new "precision journalism" holds that scientific methods should be applied to journalism, so authoritative sources are a common need for journalists and scientists. We therefore compared the individual classifications and methods of assessing of sources in biomedical science and medical journalism to try to extrapolate scientific methods of evaluation to journalism. In journalism and science terms used to classify sources of information show some similarities, but their meanings are different. In science primary and secondary classes of information, for instance, refer to the levels of processing, but in journalism to the official nature of the source itself. Scientists and journalists must both always consult as many sources as possible and check their authoritativeness, reliability, completeness, up-to-dateness and balance. In journalism, however, there are some important differences and limits: too many sources can sometimes diminish the quality of the information. The sources serve a first filter between the event and the journalist, who is not providing the reader with the fact, but with its projection. Journalists have time constraints and lack the objective criteria for searching, the specific background knowledge, and the expertise to fully assess sources. To assist in understanding the wealth of sources of information in journalism, we have prepared a checklist of items and questions. There are at least four fundamental points that a good journalist, like any scientist, should know: how to find the latest information (the sources), how to assess it (the quality and authoritativeness), how to analyse and filter it (selection), how to deal with too many sources of information, sometimes case biased by conflicting interests (balance). The journalist must, in addition, know how to translate it to render it accessible and useful to the general public (dissemination), and how to use it best.

The lay audience expresses a clear demand for scientific information, particularly when health and welfare are involved. For most people science is what they learn from the media. The need for good scientific journalism is pressing, to bridge the gap between the slow pace of science and the fast-moving and concise nature of successful mass communication. This academic postgraduate course was established by the Department of Pharmacological Sciences to train mediators to improve the quality of lay scientific dissemination. The programme focuses on teaching a method of selecting, analysing, understanding, mediating and diffusing scientific information to lay people. The course explores the theoretical and practical aspects of methods, techniques and channels of scientific communication. Case studies, practical exercises, and stages complement the theoretical curriculum. The teaching focus is on reducing the asymmetry between scientists and the public. The different backgrounds of students and the spread of topics are major challenges.

Thanks to the increasing knowledge of the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, much effort has been made in the last years to develop new drugs aimed at controlling risk factors correlated with the disease as well as to investigate more deeply their mechanism of action. In particular, this brief review will describe some new aspects of the mechanism of action of drugs widely used in the control of risk factors like hyperlipemia, hypertension and blood viscosity. Among drugs active on plasma lipid profile, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor are, at present, under study for their promising activity in the modulation of the interaction between the cells of the arterial wall and circulating blood elements. Indeed, these compounds have been found to control the proliferation of smooth muscle cells and other events related to the formation of atheroma. As far as antithrombotic drugs are concerned, the efficacy of low doses of aspirin has emerged by recent clinical trials. The successful use of low doses of aspirin has been possible following the comprehension of the mechanism by which this compound inhibits TXA-dependent platelet function, thus allowing a dose-dependent dissociation of the antithrombotic activity from other undesirable effects. Also for calcium antagonist an antiatherogenic effect which deserves further investigations has been recently clarified. Indeed it has been demonstrated that calcium antagonists have a protective effect against vascular lesions because they inhibit smooth muscle cell proliferation, lipid uptake by macrophages and the production of collagen and elastin. Another class of drugs which represents a new approach in the control of some risk factors is represented by n-3 fatty acids. Besides their activity on triglycerides, these compounds exert a positive effect on hemostatic and thromboembolic event, by reducing platelet aggregation and blood viscosity. Also for those molecules which appear to exert promising antiatherosclerotic and antithrombotic action, further studies will define their exact mechanism of action.