- Physicians Spreading Misinformation on Social Media – Do Right and Wrong Answers Still Exist in Medicine? N Engl J Med. 2022 May 18. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2204813. Epub ahead of print.
Translated from the original French version
The politicisation of the pandemic and social media have undermined public trust in health institutions, doctors and health information. The dissemination of false information by carers, doctors and other pseudo-care providers has affected millions of lives and probably caused a significant number of deaths and delays in care.
We need to consider our role in preventing these misinformers from spreading their infox and effectively prosecute them to hold them accountable.
An article1, written by the president-elect of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), among others, explains how social media has allowed influencers to take the place of evidence-based medicine. The authors show that many people mistakenly believe that doctors' speech on social media is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution on free speech.
The authors go on to say that other people, often more educated and from intellectual backgrounds, believe that these infomercial doctors should be prosecuted if they are found to be misleading or deliberately harmful (e.g. falsely claiming a conspiracy with "Big Pharma").
In the United States, health care institutions require hospital board certification regarding the updating of evidence-based medicine. This serves as a quality indicator. The authors argue that if, as a medical body, we require ourselves to be up to date with the evidence in order to practice, we should penalise those who do not practice such medicine based on the latest knowledge of science.
As physicians, we have a major ethical challenge to preserve the well-being of patients. This article argues, and I agree with the authors, that there is a major discrepancy between a range of different opinions acceptable in a medical forum and "blatantly false" or even "deliberately misleading" responses.
Infox thus have consequences that most often do not directly concern our own lives, but have a deleterious impact on a wide range of patients that we may never see in front of us. The mechanism is well known: if your friends jumped out of a plane without a parachute, would you do the same? Well... It depends on the number of friends. On social networks, we have many friends, all of whom tend to think the same way.
Faced with the problem clearly outlined in this article, it seems to me that our French medical institutions and authorities (Ministry, High Health Authority, Universities, Regional Health Agencies, National Order of Physicians, etc.) should take much more active measures against doctors who disseminate such deliberately wrong medical information.
* About Prof. Peschanski
Nicolas Peschanski is a professor of emergency medicine and a hospital practitioner at the University Hospital of Rennes.
Professor Peschanski's international career, particularly in the USA, has enabled him to become a member of the International Commission of the American College of Emergency Physicians as well as the steering committee of the EMCREG-International (Emergency Medicine Cardiac Research and Education Group). He is also a member of the European Society for Emergency Medicine (Eusem) and more particularly of its "Web & social media" committee.
Pr Peschanski is very attached to the FOAMed principle (Free Open Access Meducation). He uses social networks (@DocNikko) for educational purposes and to share knowledge in emergency medicine.Disclose of Interests:
Professor Peschanski declares the following links of interest:
- over the last three years: Vygon SA (consultant), Fisher&Paykel (symposium), AstraZeneca (symposium)
- over the last twenty years:
Symposia: Fisher&Paykel Healthcare , AstraZeneca, Lilly, Sanofi, Daiichi-Sankyo, HeartScape, The Medicine Company, Thermofisher, Roche Diagnostics
Boards: Bayer, AstraZeneca, Vygon SA, Portola USA, Sanofi, Boehringer Ingelheim
Congresses : Lilly, Sanofi, Vygon SA, Portola, Roche Diagnostics, Thermofisher
Research funds (non-personal) : Servier, Boehringer Ingelheim