Patients, members
of the public, health professionals and policymakers increasingly use social
media as a source for health information and to guide important decisions on
choices and actions about prevention and treatment of disease. Where the
information is accurate and easy to follow, this can be very helpful. However,
we are increasingly at the mercy of a spectrum of unreliability, from
incomplete or inaccurate reports, to claims that inconvenient truths are ‘fake
news’.
These are not new
problems. Sinclair Lewis in his geopolitical satire of 1935 It Can’t Happen Here refers to fake news
in the political domain [1]. George Orwell features unreliable reporting by
government-controlled media in his dystopian 1984 [2]. However, the geographical reach and speed of spread of
reports in current social media and present numerous ways to disseminate
‘alternative facts’ have new global implications for the consequences ofunreliable ‘news’ [3].
Concerns in the
health sector include social media posts making spurious health claims for ‘alternative
medicines’ and containing misinformation about causes, severity and treatments
of disease – from coronaviruses [4] and HIV infection [5] to cancers [6]. A
striking example of the serious impact on the public of misinformation is a
sustained large increase in vaccine hesitancy for measles and other
immunisations since the late 1990s [7]. This arose from a later withdrawn report in the Lancet of a link between autism and measles immunisation [8]. Although findings
in the report were judged to be fraudulent, anti-vaccine activists persist in
providing misleading information on social media based on this report. Particularly
worrying is how difficult it continues to be for international public health
authorities to counter this vaccine hesitancy. Immunisation rates against
measles remain sub-optimal 22 years after the original flawed report [8]. Social
media undoubtedly plays a role here, and its potency is reflected in the fact
that just one source is enough to disseminate and propagate untruths [9].
However, this very potency also represents a means to inform and educate patients,
members of the public, health professionals and policymakers.
The FPM International Awards for Medical Writing in
Social Media are new annual awards for medical graduates
from anywhere in the world. To be eligible, an article or blog must be in
English and should have been published online between 1st July 2019 and the
closing date for the awards: 30th June 2020. There will be up to 5 prizes per
year. Each award winner will receive a £100 prize. Award winners will also have
winning content published in one of the FPM’s journals, either Health Policy
and Technology or the Postgraduate Medical Journal.
References
1. Sinclair
Lewis. It Can’t Happen Here. 1935, Doubleday, Doran and Company. ISBN
045121658X.
2. George Orwell.
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel. 1949,
Secker and Warberg. OCLC 470015866.
3. Launer J. The production of
ignorance. Postgrad Med J 2020 xxxxxx.
4. Frédéric
Lemaître. China denounces being placed under quarantine. Le Monde. 4th February
2020.
5. National AIDS
Trust. HIV fake news: NAT sets out to tackle misinformation. December 1st, 2017
www.nat.org.uk/press-release/hiv-fake-news-nat-sets-out-tackle-misinformation
Accessed 4th February, 2020.
6. Bessi A,
Coletto M, Davidescu GA, et al. Science vs conspiracy: collective narratives in
the age of misinformation. PLoS One. 2015;10:118093.
7. Vaccine Hesitancy. European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control.
www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/immunisation-vaccines/vaccine-hesitancy Accessed 29th
January 2020.
8. Retracted Lancet 2010;375:445:
Wakefield AJ, Murch, SH, Linnell J et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia,
non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998;351:637-641.
9. Waszakab PM, Kasprzycka-Waszak
W, AlicjaKubanek, A. The spread of medical fake news in social media – The
pilot quantitative study. Health Policy Technol 2018;7(2):115-118.
