BOB GARFIELD: Before we get too deep into 2006, we thought we'd take one last look at some of the ways in which the media got it wrong in 2005. A George Mason University group called STATS compiled a group of the most egregious examples from the past year. Rebecca Goldin is Director of Research for STATS, or the Statistical Assessment Service. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

REBECCA GOLDIN: Thank you for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: At the top of your list is a story we've actually discussed before on this show, the idea that methamphetamine is sweeping the country and harming us in ways unprecedented in the war against drugs. How could you demonstrate statistically that the meth mania was exaggerated?

REBECCA GOLDIN: Well, the easy kinds of things to do is to look at trends of drug use by kids, for example, who are in high school. And what we saw was that meth use had been going down over the past couple of years, and that its current rate - 4.5 percent of high school seniors have tried it in their lives - is pretty comparable to the rate of people using crack. There are other drugs that are even worse. Cocaine in general has usage rates more like eight percent currently. Cigarettes and alcohol, of course, are abused regularly and always have been. The other thing that you can look at, as opposed to just what happened in the past year, is just is 4.5 percent of people trying something really awful or is it not so awful? What percentage of those people actually get addicted? We found, again, the rates were comparable to drugs like crack. So while we're not saying that methamphetamines are a good thing, what we are saying is that meth is no worse a drug than other bad drugs that in the past have been demonized.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, the math problem was reported by many, many news outlets. The second item on your list of 2005 health journalism don'ts was about one media outlet, "Good Morning America," and a so-called exclusive investigation it did on - poisoned popcorn?

REBECCA GOLDIN: [LAUGHS] That's right. There was a drug called Zonyl RP, and people suspected that it may either itself directly cause cancer or turn into something that causes cancer inside of our body. And this is a substance that's found on popcorn bags, fast food boxes, candy wrappers, other plastics that need to be protected against grease stains. But the question as to whether the substance actually does migrate into our food and whether the fact that it migrates into our food actually does cause cancer is often entirely ignored by the media. So you get a headline that just says, "Oh, the Food and Drug Administration has opened an investigation into its safety" without any follow-up as to whether they found something, didn't find something -- what were the studies? In this case, it turned out to be a total red herring. There was no actual proof of any cancer that was caused, and there was no follow-up in the media. So we have a conflict where it's not news to say something doesn't cause cancer; it's only news to say it might.

BOB GARFIELD: Some of the most alarming stories seemed to come from experiments with various substances that may or may not be carcinogenic based on their administration to laboratory rats, but without any human studies to suggest that it has any kind of similar effect in humans. When journalists see that kind of research being cited, should they smell a rat? What should they do?

REBECCA GOLDIN: [LAUGHS] That's a good question. I think the first thing they should do is talk to the scientists who are involved in the study on rats, to ask them the following questions. First of all, is the dosage that is given to the rats comparable to something that we would expect humans to be exposed to, because toxicity is all a question of dosage. And the second question is whether the mechanism from which rats are developing cancer is a mechanism that could exist in humans. So sometimes you find that something is carcinogenic in rats because they can't digest some substance that, in fact, humans do digest. In general, I'd say the conclusion you can draw from a study on rats is that it might be true for humans and further study is needed.

BOB GARFIELD: So we've established that alarming stories seem to get the media's attention, not necessarily with a whole lot of context. But another major category of reporting on health, especially behavioral health, is the trend story.

REBECCA GOLDIN: Here we saw a whole spate of stories saying that teenagers were having more sex, drinking more. The accusations were also that they were more depressed, they had more ADD and, in general, were putting themselves at risk more. But what we found, again by just looking at the numbers, was that kids were having less sex with fewer partners. The rate of oral sex, which was one of the big accusations, that this was a new epidemic, has been staying constant. We saw that the alcohol use was going slightly down, drug use was going slightly down, cigarette use was going slightly down, and suicide rates were going down. We did find that depression rates had been going up, as did ADD rates. But no one's clear whether that went up because there's better diagnosis and treatment for these things or whether because people are in fact more depressed than they used to be. So the stories that went on about how teenagers are ruining themselves and the future of American society is somehow being ruined were really misplaced.

BOB GARFIELD: Okay, Rebecca. Well, thank you very much.

REBECCA GOLDIN: Thank you for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: Rebecca Goldin is Director of Research for the Statistical Assessment Service, or STATS, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. You can find additional flubbed stories under the Dubious Data Awards link at stats.org.