Google bans advertising for speculative and experimental medical treatments

I wonder if this will impact some of the treatments marketed to treat ME/CFS..

A new policy on advertising for speculative and experimental medical treatments
September 6, 2019

Today, we’re announcing a new Healthcare and medicines policy to prohibit advertising for unproven or experimental medical techniques such as most stem cell therapy, cellular (non-stem) therapy, and gene therapy. This new policy will prohibit ads selling treatments that have no established biomedical or scientific basis. The new policy also includes treatments that are rooted in basic scientific findings and preliminary clinical experience, but currently have insufficient formal clinical testing to justify widespread clinical use.

We know that important medical discoveries often start as unproven ideas -- and we believe that monitored, regulated clinical trials are the most reliable way to test and prove important medical advances. At the same time, we have seen a rise in bad actors attempting to take advantage of individuals by offering untested, deceptive treatments. Often times, these treatments can lead to dangerous health outcomes and we feel they have no place on our platforms.

Experts in this field support such restrictions. The International Society for Stem Cell Research President Deepak Srivastava says, “Google’s new policy banning advertising for speculative medicines is a much-needed and welcome step to curb the marketing of unscrupulous medical products such as unproven stem cell therapies. While stem cells have great potential to help us understand and treat a wide range of diseases, most stem cell interventions remain experimental and should only be offered to patients through well-regulated clinical trials. The premature marketing and commercialization of unproven stem cell products threatens public health, their confidence in biomedical research, and undermines the development of legitimate new therapies.”

 

LP is not using Google for advertising it seems.

 

I would have classified Google itself as a bad actor. I've stopped using it. I use DuckDuckGo instead.

 

Go a step further and ban YouTube videos that are little more than ads for speculative medical treatments.

 

Can you give an example of what you are referring to?

 

I can think of videos produced by subcontracted Health Authorities showcasing 'Body Psychotherapy' and graded exercise?

 

Just searching YouTube for things like "CFS cure" is honestly not nearly as bad as I was expecting, makes me wonder if they already have trained the algorithm to not surface so much of the stuff like you describe.

 

Wow... I'm speechless!

 

Homeopathy is not mentioned ...

 

Looks like they are focusing on unevidenced biomedical treatments, not psychotherapy, physiotherapy, rehabilitative treatments or 'alternative medicine'.

 

Good to hear. I was also thinking about the numerous Lightning Process "recovery" YouTube videos, of which there is apparently no shortage.