I've written three books on smoking cessation and lung cancer. I'm a past state director of the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society. I've been the state chairman for the Great American Smokeout in Georgia several times. I maintain a monthly Web newsletter detailing the latest research on smoking cessation and lung cancer - you can find that at www.anvilpub.com/lung_cancer_update. I've been on more than 500 radio stations in the last two years talking about smoking cessation.
I give your series an A- for effort and a B- for content. Sorry about the grading, but I was also a journalism prof for a number of years at the Universities of Wisconsin and Georgia - hard to get over grading news coverage.
Why the A- on effort? The series has been somewhat disjointed and noncontinuous.
Why the B- on content? First of all, you overplayed Claudia Henschke's research and the I-ELCAP effort. There are a lot of problems with this methodology (low-dose helical CT scans) for early detection of lung cancer. See my free eBook, "Kathie's Story: Misdiagnosed with Lung Cancer." And check with NCI about the status of the 50,000-patient study under way testing the methodology more scientifically than has Henschke, who is well intentioned but a radiologist, not a research scientist. My eBook pretty well covers the problems with I-ELCAP. Serum tests just beginning to come on the market hold much more promise in my opinion for early detection - and they're far less expensive and far less dangerous. Second, your series doesn't appear to be having much impact, perhaps because of the packaging of an unpopular topic. If you were really impacting the public, you'd have a lot more hits on this blog.
But, thanks anyway for drawing attention to the problem with more than cursory coverage.
Noel L. Griese, APR
Anvil Associates, Inc. Marketing and Public Relations
Atlanta, GA