"While we have made progress this year, we know there is more work to do. Although vaccines are considered safe by the medical and the scientific community at large, a few well-funded anti-vaccination activists without medical training or expertise have promoted the false claim that vaccines cause harm and death.įacebook said it has been working diligently to reduce the spread of health misinformation. Papaya leaf juice, elderberry, dates, thyme, garlic, jasmine, limes, okra and other herbs, vegetables and exotic fruits were all offered this year as cures for cancer, diabetes, asthma and the flu.īut not all of the year's fake health news was hopeful a more sinister message misinformed people about vaccines. "Ginger is 10,000x more effective at killing cancer than chemo," reads the headline of an article that generated over 800,000 engagements. Marijuana was one of the most popular alleged cures in the genre, which correlates with audience demand: Stanford University researchers recently found that online searches for cannabis and cancer had grown at 10 times the rate of searches for other standard medical therapies.ĭozens of viral articles hosted on rings of clickbait health misinformation sites suggested that we should fear processed foods (300,000 engaged with "Scientists Warn People to Stop Eating Instant Noodles Due to Cancer and Stroke Risks") while embracing other so-called natural cures without medical evidence, often sandwiched between ads for the very supplements proposed as miracles. Overall, cancer was the subject of the most popular kind of health misinformation, with viral articles promoting unproven cures for cancer making up roughly a third of our list. The article was shared by 1.8 million users. The next closest article about cancer was a legitimate ( though overhyped) report from a Florida Fox affiliate on an experimental breast cancer vaccine. The April article, "Cancer industry not looking for a cure they're too busy making money," garnered 5.4 million engagements on Natural News, a website owned and operated by Mike Adams, a dietary supplement purveyor who goes by the moniker "The Health Ranger." The article found its widest audience on Facebook, where Natural News had nearly 3 million followers until it was banned in June for using "misleading or inaccurate information" to attract engagement, according to a statement that Facebook sent Ars Technica. The most engaged-with article about cancer in 2019, for example, pushed a stew of medical conspiracies, including one positing that "Big Pharma," a nebulous group that includes doctors and federal health organizations, is hiding a cure for cancer. In relation to some topics, including cancer and fluoride, fake health news dominated overall news. The most viral health misinformation in 2019 was on the topics of cancer, unproven cures and vaccines, according to the review. An NBC News analysis raises concerns about just what information people might have found in 2019. Cancer, unproven cures and vaccinesĮighty percent of people online are using the internet to search for health information. Although researchers do suggest that poor health journalism can misinform the public, the count doesn't include articles from legitimate news outlets that may reach false conclusions, cover flawed studies or inflate the findings of single studies, as is often the case with conflicting news articles concerning the health benefits of red wine, chocolate and coffee, for example.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |