Editor`s Opinion: Protecting Science: A Word Warrior Alert

    US pharmaceutical companies were not always allowed to advertise directly to consumers. The moment they could, they sought the skills of advertising agencies adept at developing slogans and catchy phrases and applying new words to existing phenomena to increase the appeal of consumer products. Apparently, that strategy worked. Marketing wizardry has helped increase demand for many prescription drugs — especially the new and novel.

    Wound, ostomy, and skin care journal readers, as well as some of their patients, see their share of advertisements. Some immediately catch your eye. Others go largely unnoticed unless someone happens to be looking for the telephone number of a particular company or the name of a product. In all these instances, we recognize what we are seeing — that is, company-sponsored information.

    Where we run into trouble, in more ways than one, is when the line between advertising, promotion, and information is blurred. In the political arena, for example, elected officials and government agencies increasingly use Madison Avenue marketing strategies to sell ideas, soft-pedal problems, and make controversial proposals sound reasonable. Legislative bills that passed with such lofty titles as “Work opportunity acts” generally result in laws that, in reality, mean “Your benefits will be curtailed or eliminated altogether.” Conservation and modernization acts are famous for their ability to reveal nothing about their actual content or implications. Slowly but surely, we are becoming more educated language consumers, cognizant that many words and phrases introduced into our vocabulary may not accurately reflect reality. Rather, they are carefully chosen and focus-group tested for impact and ability to achieve their desired goal, blurring the line between information, reality, and promotion.

    Sadly, science has not remained immune to this trend. Whether by accident or design, we encounter words and phrases that are neither valid nor clinically meaningful. Wound care experts, not immune to this phenomenon, use a wide variety of definitions to describe wound care process terms, such as wound cleansing or exudate management — innocuous sounding but are they accurate? Can the science of wound care progress in the absence of valid and reliable wound assessment and care definitions?¹ How can we teach anyone what to do and how to do it when the terms we use are not valid — ie, not supported by objective truth?
Clinicians and manufacturers develop new concepts, ideas, paradigms, and phrases all the time. However, unless their validity and reliability is tested, we do not know if they accurately reflect or achieve their intended purpose. Hence, adopting them into our vocabulary and clinical practice is, at best, unwise. Most importantly, our collective knowledge and the science supporting what we do will remain stagnant unless we get serious about establishing the validity and reliability of our practice recommendations and vocabulary. Slogans, catchy phrases, and novel terms should remain the tools of advertising agencies and marketing gurus. Finding the real information in politics and policies is difficult enough. But in science, the line between promotion and information is clear and it is our collective duty to keep it that way. Word warriors: stay on guard!