In November 2025, the Food and Drug Administration changed the warnings on package inserts for estrogen, removing references to increased risk of breast cancer when estrogen is used to relieve symptoms of menopause.
The warnings did not change because of new clinical trial data. Instead, a formal review of the original data showed the warnings were based on misunderstanding the data. The original study, the Women’s Health Initiative, was published in 2002 and met with immediate media attention incorrectly highlighting the risks, generating unnecessary fear of HRT and depriving women of symptom relief and long-term health benefits clearly demonstrated by the study.
Misinformation about science and health research is everywhere. Mainstream reporters need their copy to come out quickly. Social media influencers promote dubious nutrition concepts and unproven health products or procedures without oversight. These influencers use aggressive marketing tactics to reach a broad audience of potential consumers. Even government leaders promote misinformation to advance political or personal agendas, such as recent efforts to incorrectly link vaccines and autism on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
To help reduce the misuse and misunderstanding of current science, scientific research needs to be explained in language the public can understand.
One method to do this would be to ensure that the conclusions of research are publicly accessible. The peer reviewed journal, the main method for disseminating research findings, is inaccessible to the majority of Americans because of the highly technical language researchers use. The goal of a scientific research paper is to show new knowledge in the context of existing evidence. To do this effectively requires providing detailed background information, displaying data in the context of other research, and explaining how the results impact the field at large. Scientific articles are written for peers, those people who are reviewing or applying the work, and tend to be jargon-laden to ensure the research can affect the field and that other scientists can interpret, replicate, and utilize the results. As a result, lay audiences can find the language of peer reviewed journals impenetrable.
Amid talk of a brain drain, some scientists leave U.S. behind
While it’s important to ensure the results of science are usable for those in the field, it is also vital for science to be accessible to non-experts. Even well-regarded research can be manipulated by those who misunderstand or misuse the results, as seen recently when a breast cancer study results were distorted to suggest birth control causes cancer.
The National Academy of Medicine has long recognized a gap between health care research, medical communications, and public understanding, which is widening and impacting health outcomes.
A similar challenge exists for other fields of scientific writing and the public. One major recommendation from the American Medical Association and the Department of Health and Human Services is to present information for the general public at a fourth to sixth grade reading level to make it accessible to the average adult in the United States, who reads at a ninth or 10th grade level.
To combat misuse of scientific research, peer reviewed journals should publish plain language abstracts in conjunction with standard abstracts. These abstracts can be developed with journal editors to help authors avoid unnecessary jargon and be finalized after the peer review process to avoid having experts overly criticize the generalization of the work.
Within this abstract, scientists can describe their findings, the impact of their findings, and the limitations of the work. A plain language abstract could include whether the study used a model organism and human studies are needed, or whether the study used a small sample size and the results need confirmation with a larger data set. These abstracts could be displayed at the top of articles just before the scientific abstract and listed together in publication databases, such as PubMed and Web of Science.
For example, one of us, Matthews, co-authored a paper with a long technical abstract at a 16th grade reading level, according to Microsoft Word’s Flesch-Kincaid readability tool:
“The complement C3a anaphylatoxin receptor (C3aR) is a seven-transmembrane G-protein coupled chemoattractant receptor that on binding the C3a peptide ligand mediates numerous cellular responses, including histamine release from mast cells. smooth muscle contraction, and the directed migration of eosinophils. To delineate the murine C3aR coding sequence, gene structure, 5′-flanking region, and chromosome location, cDNA and genomic clones encoding the mouse C3a receptor were isolated, characterized, and used in fluorescence in situ hybridization experiments. The results from this study indicate that the murine C3a receptor structural gene is a single copy gene of approximately 8 kb comprised of 2 exons which are separated by a large intervening intron of 4724 bp. The first exon encodes 97 bp of 5′-untranslated sequence. Exon 2 encodes the remaining 8 bp of 5′-untranslated sequence and the entire coding and 3′-untranslated sequences. This genomic organization is typical of most other chemoattractant receptor genes in that the entire coding sequence is contained on a single exon. The human and mouse C3a receptor genes were localized to syntenic chromosomal bands 12q13.2-3 and 6F1, respectively. No other seven-transmembrane receptor genes, to date, have been localized to these chromosomal regions. Primer extension experiments using mouse macrophage RNA indicated a single transcriptional initiation site. Sequence analysis 5′ of the transcriptional site indicated a TATA-less promoter with possible cis-acting motifs that may regulate C3a receptor gene expression. These included the recognition sequence for the nuclear transcription factor SP1 and the phorbol ester response sequence which binds the Fos/Jun heteromeric transcription factor AP1.”
Here’s a modified and shortened version of the previous abstract at a seventh grade reading level:
“In this paper, scientists studied a special part of a cell called the C3a receptor. You can think of it like a switch on the outside of a cell. When something triggers this switch, it tells the body to react, like causing an allergic reaction or tightening muscles. The goal of this study was to map the DNA instructions (genes) for this switch in mice. The scientists found that the gene is built in two main sections with a long gap in between. Interestingly, the main instructions are all in one section, which is normal for this kind of gene. They also discovered exactly where this gene lives in the mouse’s DNA and human DNA (or chromosome). Finally, they identified what they believed were the ‘start buttons’ near the gene that likely control when and what cells build this receptor. Scientists hope that what they learned about C3a receptors in mice will help understand what that receptor does in humans.”
Open access to research can close gaps for people with disabilities
Publicly accessible abstracts are already required for many federal and private grant proposals. For example, at the National Science Foundation, program officers work with grantees to explain their proposed research and its impact to a general audience. These abstracts allow the public to see what research public funding is being used for. Similarly, providing public abstracts for journal articles will allow the public to more easily understand the processes and aims of scientific research.
Some journals have started this by providing “key points” bullets or other summary items for articles, but the practice has yet to be taken up by most prestigious journals and science publishers.
While this will neither combat all misinformation nor stop bad actors from using scientific evidence and claims incorrectly, we believe plain language abstracts would be a significant step toward helping those who want to understand research, enabling their access to original research instead of leaving them to rely entirely on secondhand interpretations. This can also help public audiences more easily identify when science is being misconstrued and misinterpreted.
Kirstin R.W. Matthews, Ph.D., is a fellow of science and technology policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and studies biomedical research policy. Heidi Russell, M.D., Ph.D., is the Huffington fellow in child health and L.E. Simmons senior fellow in health policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and studies health economics and child health policies.