As coverage of a potential spinal cord treatment draws massive interest, science journalists are warning against media excitement outpacing early clinical reality.
In March, during Women’s History Month, a lecture on women’s presence in science at the University of São Paulo drew the attention of thousands of people. Within three minutes, all tickets for a 600-seat auditorium were sold out.
The unusually high demand was driven by interest in a specific scientist speaking: Tatiana Sampaio, a researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who is studying a new molecule –known as polylaminin– that could become a potential treatment for spinal cord injuries.
Still in the early stages of clinical trials, the experimental treatment is not yet available to the public, although patients have been attempting to secure court-ordered access to the trials even amid growing uncertainty about its effectiveness.
Since early 2026, interest in polylaminin has exploded into a coverage frenzy that walks a fine line between hope and exaggeration.
An example of exaggerated claims came from newspaper O Tempo that published the headline: “What is polylaminin, the Brazilian drug that regenerates bone marrow and reverses paraplegia.” Meanwhile, Época Negocios published an article with a more grounding title: “How polylaminin will be used to treat spinal cord injuries that cause paraplegia and tetraplegia.”
Many, however, became more and more weary with the hype. Alicia Kowaltowski, a physician and columnist at Nexo, bluntly cautioned for people to not let the “cure” for paraplegia become the new “cancer pill,” citing an old case where social media frenzy led to a compound being produced and sold legally as a cancer therapy in Brazil despite a lack of laboratory evidence that it was effective.
Because of this, Brazilian science and health journalists have begun to take a closer interest in the molecule and scrutinize the treatment and the scientist behind polylaminin. Many have found parallels with past cases that underscore the need for restraint in the face of public hype.
Chloé Pinheiro, a health reporter at VEJA and producer of the podcast Ciência Suja, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) she was not surprised by the frenzy surrounding the treatment or the way it has been covered.
“Of course, there was hope that we had learned something from the pandemic, but in reality, science and health desks [in journalism] are disorganized and under intense pressure to boost audience numbers,” she said. “So when something like this comes up, the media tends to jump on the story — without qualified journalists to interpret the evidence and with more concern about a headline’s potential to attract readers.”
Pinheiro cited similar cases from the past that became swept up in a whirlwind of mounting public interest, and called for scientific and journalistic moderation. There was Brazilian scientist Miguel Nicolelis’s robotic exoskeleton in 2014, as well as chloroquine for treating COVID-19, phosphoethanolamine (also known as the aforementioned “cancer pill”), the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, which was discontinued, and others.
Former president of the Brazilian Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences (ABCF), Flávio Emery, told LJR that social media enthusiasm played a pivotal role in creating overly optimistic coverage
“[Polylaminin] has not been given its rightful place as a drug candidate. The way it was treated in most of the reports I saw presented the molecule as the solution to a serious health problem. In other words, the solution was already there, and it was comprehensive enough to resolve a serious case,” he said.
The first warning sign for journalists about polylaminin came in September 2025, when reporters were invited by the company Cristália (which holds the substance’s patent) to an announcement of results from the original pilot study. The pilot study itself –which was not peer-viewed– had been stalled since 2021 due to issues with its patent.
Meghie Rodrigues, a freelance science reporter and co-host of Ciencia Suja podcast, recalls skepticism about that press conference. In it, the company [Cristália] used that pilot-study to bring attention to the molecule.
“When you’re a specialized reporter, you’re already skeptical of certain claims, because you understand how the scientific method works and you know the stages of a clinical trial,” she told LJR.
Rodrigues, however, acknowledges that for colleagues covering the daily news cycle without the same technical background, it is much harder to remain skeptical.
“If a pharmaceutical company is announcing a product, you kind of assume everything must have gone well up to that point,” she said. “Sometimes you don’t even know where to start. If you don’t know the phases of a clinical trial, you won’t even know how to ask these questions. Then it becomes easy to end up with conflicting information, exaggerated claims or more sensationalist coverage.”
The case of the “cancer pill,” mentioned earlier, stands out as a notorious chapter in Brazil’s scientific history. The public — and political — uproar was so strong that its use was approved in 2016 despite there being no evidence it worked.
Today, the key difference is that polylaminin is still under study.
“There are still far more questions than answers — unlike phosphoethanolamine, which, even in early clinical research stages, had already been proven ineffective. That was a fraud,” Rodrigues told LJR.
“There are still many tests and studies to be done, including controlled clinical trials, which have not yet been conducted and still need to be done,” she said
Marilia Marasciulo, a freelance reporter for Galileu and Courthouse News, said the polylaminin story shows that public interest in science and health is not necessarily lacking.
“On the contrary, what I see is that especially when there are stories involving promises of cures, biomedical discoveries and sometimes even something like space exploration, people are really interested,” she told LJR.
Pinheiro said journalists should not avoid covering overhyped topics in science and health journalism, but they must do so with extra caution.
“One way I find to balance this is to use more neutral headlines,” she said. “We could use a headline like ‘why news about polylaminin should be read with caution,’ or an even more neutral one like ‘what science says about polylaminin,’ so as not to push readers away at first glance.”
She also notes that amid growing polarization, reporters should not fall into false equivalence (“both-sidesism”) and should always make clear where “science” stands on a given topic.
