Protecting the Value of Medical Science in the Age of Social Media and “Fake News”

Sly Saint

Sly Saint

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
New threats to effective scientific communication make it more difficult to separate science from science fiction.

Patients can be harmed by misinformation or by misplaced trust; for example, patients with cancer using complementary medicine are more likely than patients not using it to refuse evidence-based therapies and have higher mortality.1

Researchers who produce objective science can no longer focus on simply disseminating the message. Now they must also defend that evidence from challenges to the validity and interpretation of their research and, at times, be proactive to ensure that unsubstantiated messages do not compete with the correct message.
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https://jamanetwork.com/journals/ja...m=social&utm_term=121918#.XBotBT5dmv0.twitter

(link to this article was tweeted by Michael Sharpe:emoji_innocent:)
 
One problem for medical science of all sorts is the constant production of articles in newspapers and news websites that say things like the following :

1) Statins cause diabetes.

2) Statins protect people from diabetes.

3) Statins don't prolong life.

4) Statins save your life.

5) Statins protect against cancer.

6) Statins increase the risk of cancer.

7) Statins don't cause side effects.

8) Statins cause muscle pain and damage.

9) Statins cause dementia.

10) Statins protect people from dementia.

Contradictory articles appear practically every day of the week about alcohol, saturated fats, red meat, bacon and other similar meats, carbs, nicotinoids, bees, vegetarians, vegans, trans fats, fats generally, being a carnivore, omnivore, herbivore, fracking, global warming, climate change...
 
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