In the article “Scientists Gain Insight Into How COVID Harms the Heart” by U.S. News and World Report, Cara Murez describes recent findings on how COVID-19 affects the coronary arteries of older individuals who were infected by the original virus strains. The article opens by making a general statement that new research has found that the virus can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. The author goes on to explain how the virus infects macrophages and could lead to the build-up of plaque, suggesting that there could be further studies based on this premise and that this study could be generalized to larger populations – that is, anyone who gets the virus. The study is suggested to be a good source of information to predict future research on the effects of acute and long-term COVID-19 and is said to demonstrate a better understanding of the virus.

To understand how this article may impact a patient’s engagement with medical information, one should first isolate the true information reported in the study from how it may be presented at face value. Upon opening the article, readers are introduced to what they expect to be the summary of the study’s implications, which conveys to the readers that research has shown that COVID-19 can lead to heart disease and stroke in patients. This incredibly general statement has no specifications or true information about the nature of the study, which can be misleading for casual readers. Further in the article however, readers are finally introduced to information regarding the nature of the study and learn that the research was focused on older people with plaque in their arteries who died from COVID-19. However, in the same sentence, the author goes on to state that these findings, which are relatively narrow in the breadth of cases they cover, could implicate anybody who is infected with the coronavirus. This singular statement would lead patients to assume that this study applies to absolutely everyone, and therefore themselves if they have been or will be infected with the virus, even though the article itself contradicts this statement. At the very end of the article, there is a note from the researchers that states that the study only included a small group of older individuals infected with the original virus strains and that it cannot be generalized to other strains or other populations. This statement directly refutes the previous claim about the research’s generalization by Murez, and it provides further specification that the results are not even relevant to the strain of virus that is circulating today. After dissecting the conflicting statements made throughout the article, it seems as if the author is portraying the findings to apply to the readers’ everyday lives when it should instead be a report of the true, conditional conclusions the study has the authority to yield.

This misleading portrayal of scientific research can deeply affect patient’s opinions and beliefs about COVID and therefore could impact their medical decisions. One discussion in our IDMD 101 class that I believe applies heavily to this scenario is our analysis of how the media reports on studies and how that can turn into harmful, lasting beliefs, exemplified by the MSG hoax reviewed in the This American Life podcast. Because the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter to the editor, which was not backed by any scientific research, without making it clear to the readers that it was just an opinion piece, decades were spent with patients having medical misconceptions and false beliefs that MSG was harmful to the body. Similarly, articles being published today, such as the one in this discussion, can cause patients to falsely believe that a correlation found in one study is always applicable to their own health and medical decisions. This specific article may lead to patients believing that they will have a higher risk of heart disease or stroke solely because they have caught the virus due to its initial lack of specification of who and what strain the study pertains to. The misleading aspects of this article misinform the public, which affects patients’ medical decisions. Doctors are then tasked with reassuring patients of untrue beliefs, which can prove to be a hurdle that can get in the way of the true treatment a patient might need. Suppose the patient truly trusts this article because it seems to cite straightforward evidence. In that case, this might harm the doctor-patient relationship when the doctor clarifies the true meaning of such research. Instead of being able to treat the patient as needed, the physician must combat the spread of misinformation and put their relationship with the patient on the line. These situations may be avoided if articles are upfront and clear about the research they report instead of trying to make untrue generalizations to get more attention from readers. 

Furthermore, an article that does not clearly portray the findings of a research study could affect the concept of informed consent and medical decision-making. Through the readings “The Concept of Informed Consent” by Faden and Beauchamp and “Informed Consent: What Must be Disclosed and What Must be Understood” by Millum and Bromwich, we learned the importance of ensuring that patients are as well-informed as possible when making decisions about their health so that they may accurately exercise autonomy and be able to give or refuse authority to their doctors in performing procedures. There is an argument to be had for the idea that media portrayals of medical concepts, as seen in “Scientists Gain Insight Into How COVID Harms the Heart,” actively interfere with the concept of informed consent. To expound on this idea, let us consider the fact that informed consent relies on the patient’s understanding of the information they are presented with. If a patient receives information from a piece of media that is not clear on how such information may affect them, then he or she does not fully understand the data presented, and such patients may base future medical decisions on their innate understanding of how COVID may affect them, whether that be by avoiding treatment out of fear or seeking out unnecessary interventions to protect them from the heart disease that this article implies is imminent. While the beliefs patients elicit from these articles do influence their understanding of future medical decisions, doctors are not privy to understanding these beliefs unless the patient comes forth with them, which creates a circle similar to the “extrapolator’s circle” that Stegenga discusses in Chapter 7 of Care and Cure. If a patient misinterprets the data of a study because of an article’s presentation of such data, then they are unable to seek a doctor’s clarification due to the fact that they do not understand that they are misinterpreting the evidence in the first place. This predicament fundamentally undermines the concept of informed consent because patients do not have a complete understanding of their medical situation, and it is detrimental to the doctor-patient relationship because a foundation of truth and understanding has been tainted by the media’s presentation of medical issues for public consumption. 

This article very effectively demonstrates the misunderstandings and the strain on doctor-patient relationships that come from the mass consumption of articles that report on medicine. Without articles properly conveying the evidence and conclusions from a study, patients may assume fragmented beliefs about illnesses and are unable to clarify this misunderstanding because the articles are not clear in the first place. When these articles inevitably influence patients’ personal medical decisions, it becomes a strain on the doctor to convey the truth to patients and uphold their relationships. This dilemma could be avoided simply by recognizing that such misunderstandings take place and taking an active role in producing clear articles that the average patient can thoroughly understand. 

Works Cited

Faden, Ruth R., and Tom L. Beauchamp. “Decision-Making and Informed Consent: A Study of the Impact of Disclosed Information.” Social Indicators Research, vol. 7, no. 1–4, Jan. 1980, pp. 313–36, doi:10.1007/bf00305604.

HealthDay. “Scientists Gain Insight into How COVID Harms the Heart.” U.S. News & World Report, 2 Oct. 2023, https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-10-02/ scientists-gain-insight-into-how-covid-harms-the-heart.

Millum, Joseph, and Danielle Bromwich. “Informed Consent: What Must Be Disclosed and What Must Be Understood?” The American Journal of Bioethics, vol. 21, no. 5, Jan. 2021, pp. 46–58, doi:10.1080/15265161.2020.1863511.

Stegenga, Jacob. Care & Cure: An Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine. University of Chicago Press, 2018.

“The Long Fuse.” This American Life, 8 Feb. 2019, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the- long-fuse.