Some readers may recall my post about the sketchy "Brain Health Quiz" used as a marketing device by North Shore University Health Systems. My article about it appeared last August in Undark Magazine, and I blogged about it here. Well, Undark has now published a follow-up article by reporter Michael Schulson, and it appears that North Shore has withdrawn some of its more questionable claims. Here is what Schulson discovered:
NorthShore defended the quiz as a valuable tool for patient education. The bioethicists and public health experts that Lubet contacted were more skeptical. More than a month after Undark published Lubet’s piece, NorthShore added a disclaimer at the bottom of the questionnaire, stating that this is “not a diagnostic tool and is not a substitute for a physician exam,” and added a note describing the quiz as “for educational purposes only.” It also stopped referring to the quiz as “a screening test.” And, even before those changes, NorthShore had apparently tweaked the algorithm so that responding “yes” to the question “Are you worried about your brain health?” would not trigger a risk warning, as it did when Lubet inspected the quiz. But other than that, the quiz itself — and the inclusion of the handy phone number — didn’t seem to change.
You can read the follow-up article here.