In a podcast reported October 20, Christina Applegate said a doctor told her she does not have multiple sclerosis after more than five years of symptoms. The Daily Mail’s health page headlined the story as a “Terrifying truth” about a national MS surge. The headline’s loudest figure has no base. “1 in 5 patients” sits just after “America’s”, so a reader hears one in five of the country’s MS patients. The page’s source, first described around its 28th paragraph, is a 2019 study of 241 patients referred to two major medical centers in California: 17 to 19 percent had been misdiagnosed, after an average of four years of treatment. The number arrives with nothing to compare it with, so the mind fills in the biggest base on offer. The “surge” is stated as fact. The 17th paragraph says experts believe the rise “may partly reflect improvements in detecting MS, rather than a genuine increase in cases”, and the page gives no years or base figures for it. The “three conditions” become at least five on the page. Dr. Andrew Solomon, quoted on the same page, says many patients hear “misdiagnosed” because they were changing doctors. The headline carries the fear; the text carries the qualifiers. Beside it, Prevention’s headline has neurologists calling the misdiagnosis ‘Not Uncommon’, and the BBC tells the case in nine words: Applegate “says she was wrongly diagnosed with MS”. The Mail’s capitals land on “DON’T”, a word aimed at every reader who carries the diagnosis. The page names no test, clinic or product; its advice is a second opinion from an MS-trained specialist. The tell to keep: a big fraction in a headline with no study, place or year beside it.
