I’m a healthcare professional - social media is replacing science with fear for profit
Medicine is built on evidence. We test, we challenge, we revise. It’s a slow process, but it works. And when the facts change, we change with them.
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That is why, just this year, scientists announced the first treatment shown to slow Huntington’s disease- a cruel, inherited condition long thought untreatable. It is proof that rigorous science though painstaking, delivers hope where none existed before.
That foundation is under attack. Not from a lack of science, but from a flood of misinformation, and sometimes deliberate disinformation, online.
There’s an old saying: “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has its boots on.” In the age of social media that’s literally true. Once, snake‑oil salesmen hawked incredible elixirs from wagons. Now, they’ve gone digital.
Scroll for a few minutes and you’ll find it: quick‑fix “cures,” anti‑vaccine rants, conspiracy theories dressed up as “truth.” A single post can reach millions in hours. No sources. No data. Just emotion.
The harm is real. Measles once eliminated, has resurged, with outbreaks hospitalising children and costing lives. During the pandemic, misinformation about Ivermectin led people to take veterinary formulations of the drug. Some ended up in intensive care. Others died.
The design of these platforms fuels the problem. Engagement is currency. Whatever makes you click, like, or comment is what you’ll be shown more of. Even if you reply to debunk a false claim, the algorithm reads that as interest and serves you more of the same.
It’s lucrative. Researchers have shown how influencers spread vaccine misinformation while selling “alternatives”. Disinformation isn’t an accident of the system, it’s very part of the business model.
These platforms amplify certainty. They punish nuance. A careful explanation of evidence rarely travels as far as a dramatic claim. Echo chambers form, and inside them, repetition makes falsehoods feel like fact.
The choice is stark. Do we want our health shaped by peer‑reviewed evidence and open debate or by whoever shouts loudest online?
Science is not perfect but it learns, it adapts, it improves. Those who peddle falsehoods for profit do none of these things and the cost is paid in lives.
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Thorrun Govind is a pharmacist and healthcare lawyer.
LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.