Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Headline writers, be careful

A study published in the August 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that a 35-minute treatment program, implemented in hospital's emergency departments, can result in a reduction of violent behavior and alcohol misuse. A good outcome, indeed.
The title of the article is Effects of a Brief Intervention for Reducing Violence and Alcohol Misuse Among Adolescents.
So far, so good.
Now, the commonly-used abbreviation for emergency department is ED, with the result that a headline writer at Medscape (free registration required to read article) used the following: ED Intervention May Reduce Aggression, Alcohol-Related Outcomes in Teens.
An earlier announcement on clinicaltrials.gov used this title: ED Intervention to Reduce Risky Behaviors in Drivers.
ED, of course, is also a commonly-used euphemistic abbreviation for another, um, condition. (No links are required here. All you have to do is sit down to watch a TV show with your parents or children in the room and wait for the awkward silence when the advertisements start.)
A lifetime spent sharing the roads with Massachusetts drivers leads me to suspect that some kind of ED intervention might indeed reduce aggressive and risk driving. 
Your mileage may vary.

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