Medical misinformation and sensationalism in the age of social media

The information age has proven to be a double-edged sword when it comes to healthcare: the open-source nature of the Internet has empowered patients and consumers to access more medical information than ever before.

This easy access sounds positive and has certainly resulted in a more informed patient, until one recognises that products, services, and people wanting to sell and influence behaviour also have easy access to these same patients. The result is a hodgepodge of information, products, sales pitches, and activism.

The problem of medical misinformation on the Internet was brewing before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the combustible discourse around vaccines, quarantine, public health policy, and the root cause of COVID- 19 threw the state of affairs into sharp relief and prompted more attention from academics and policymakers.

In 2021, a systematic review of health misinformation studies published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research looked at the prevalence of medical misinformation on various topics and a multitude of social media platforms.¹ They found the prevalence of misinformation in some cases was as high as 98%. Misinformation around smoking and illegal drugs was the most prevalent, followed by misinformation about vaccines.

Misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic led directly to lower vaccination rates, prompting a public health advisory from the US Surgeon General and the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare an "infodemic".^2,3 While hindsight is 20/20, the ongoing questioning of appropriate protocols continues to serve as fodder for political debate, fuelling ongoing confusion, which amplifies the seductiveness of misinformation.

Social media and misinformation

Today, social media is one of the most prominent sources of health misinformation. Platforms have little incentive to police misinformation, especially because research suggests misinformation, on average, attracts more engagement than accurate information.⁴ These mostly public companies are driven by revenue growth; hence, they're incentivised to allow questionable messaging and information to be promoted through their sites. Social posters and influencers may not be trying to spread misinformation, but the Internet lends itself to blurred lines when it comes to the generally unscientific realm of “wellness” relative to evidence-based science.

“Medical, wellness, nutrition, lifestyle – each has their own definition, yet, these definitions are diluted and create a giant blur on the Internet and within the social media ecosystem,” said Douglas Kaufman, Senior VP of Medscape Education (a division of WebMD).

The echo chamber effect of social media can lead people to feel more comfortable sharing misinformation, while algorithms are designed to show that information to people who are more predisposed to believe it.⁵

Of course, others are deliberately spreading misinformation for profit, as in the case of questionable, unregulated supplements.

"Dietary supplements were frequently advertised on Instagram with discount codes, promising effectiveness, and were often presented as a panacea. In contrast, information on dosing, daily costs, adverse effects, contraindications, and risks of overdosing was insufficiently addressed by influencers. Overall, influencers on Instagram misinform, rather than inform, consumers on dietary supplements, opening the door for intoxications," says Kaufman.⁶

Nowhere left to go for facts

In the past, when people were confronted with health misinformation, there were widely understood avenues for getting correct information. Not so today, when search engines return Al summaries prone to hallucinations. Even before the widespread deployment of Al search, a 2023 study in Nature found that online searches intended to evaluate fake articles were more likely to increase belief in those falsehoods because users encounter "corroborating evidence from low-quality sources.”⁷

“Fact-checking should not be a political motivation. It's something that media companies have always done. But today it feels like we're in a cycle of political discourse and dogma first vs. unbiased news and the truth, second."

And large language models like ChatGPT make the problem worse: because they mine the Internet for their training data, they are just as likely to repeat widespread falsehoods as to debunk them.⁸

Combatting social media misinformation

Higher quality, trustworthy information is out there, but consumers and patients must be able to cut through the clutter and find it.

The goal is to find credible platforms that have an entrenched culture of evidence-based information and data that end users – whether it's a healthcare provider, caregiver, patient, or consumer - can readily access,” Kaufman says.

From a professional education perspective, that trusted source often comes in the form of accredited continuing medical education (CME), delivered by highly credentialled and respected authors, often deemed as key opinion leaders (KOLs), working hand-in-hand with accredited providers who also have a wealth of clinical, scientific, and learning design expertise.

"CME is independent education – fair and balanced content without bias," Kaufman explains. "Often these platforms have information and sources that help augment that education, whether it's peer-reviewed journal articles or drug reference databases, which are based on facts and data."

In these platforms, you have the opportunity to access valid content and education that's not only accredited, but also authored by highly credentialled experts - not influencers, but physicians, nurses, pharmacists, professors, and healthcare providers who are in day-to-day practice, seeing and speaking with patients and caregivers. And that should provide some degree of 'safety' as it relates to finding the most credible information." They must also disclose all sources of income that might be perceived as a conflict of interest and mitigate those relationships.

The missing link is consumer education. Everyone, including younger generations raised on social media, needs critical thinking skills to rigorously evaluate their information sources.

Physicians, peer reviewed online journals, and similar information can be trusted and accessed by patients as well as professionals, but it's a case of knowing where to look. In this way, the medium is the message. The diminishing number of accurate, unbiased, fair, balanced, well-referenced, and evidence-based sources whose sole purpose is to inform patients and healthcare professionals needs to be addressed today.

"The whole idea of literacy around communication and media is essential: we need to teach, inform, and build awareness to the whole community about the basics in discerning misinformation from what's fact and evidence-based information," Kaufman says. "I'm not sure many people really know the difference."

Groups like the American College of Physicians and the Office of the Surgeon General have put together resource pages to help various stakeholders respond to medical misinformation.^9,10 CME providers like Medscape have an important role to play as well.

"We're not only educating providers on disease, treatment, and diagnosis, but also training the trainer to ensure that they're on the front line in helping patients discern accurate information from misinformation,” explains Kaufman. Ultimately, the more stakeholders who commit to fighting the spread of misinformation, the greater the chance of intercepting it and safeguarding vulnerable patients.

"Science at its core is a method of discovery: it's not an ideology and its credibility depends on objectivity, transparency, and evidence-based information,” Kaufman says. “So, when science is politicised, that's when the erosion of trust comes into play – and that reinforces the importance of credible and evidence-based platforms."

About the interviewee

Douglas Kaufman is the Senior Vice President of Medscape Education, where he leads all U.S. business development and commercial activities across the healthcare enterprise, including the pharmaceutical, biotech, wellness, medical device, medtech sectors, and public health division. With over 20 years of experience in healthcare education and communications, Doug brings a strategic and cross-sector perspective to his leadership role. He holds a Master of Global Business Administration from Tufts University and a bachelor's degree from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

About Medscape Education

Medscape Education is the leading online platform for accredited continuing medical education (CME) and independent medical education (IME), trusted by millions of healthcare professionals worldwide. With more than 30 speciality-specific learning destinations, it offers thousands of free, accredited courses for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals. Medscape Education delivers high-impact, evidence-based education designed to support clinical decision-making, improve patient outcomes, and keep healthcare professionals current in a rapidly evolving medical landscape.

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