text_1: Ebola Vaccines Show Promise in New Study
text_2: This Wall Street Journal story reports on a New England Journal of Medicine-published study of the trial of two potential vaccines against Ebola disease. Overall, it’s a brief but well-constructed article on a much anticipated study of two Ebola candidate vaccines. Independent sourcing helps bolster the piece, and so does the detailed explanation of the current study. Readers are told how these findings fit in with the larger body of work developing a vaccine. That said, we think the story would have been stronger had it been more clear on the industry connections behind the study, and if it had discussed availability of the vaccine–especially if a new outbreak occurs. Vaccine development for Ebola would be a big step forward in combatting a deadly infection. And it can be tempting for journalists to get caught up in the exciting research developments, but as we’ve discussed, journalists and consumers need to immunize themselves against hype about unproven vaccines. This story takes a balanced approach by pointing out limitations of the current research.