Facebook, Twitter Spread Medical Misinformation

Facebook, Twitter and the Internet are spreading medical misinformation that can be wrong, or in some cases, deadly, according to a recent study.

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In 2008, Paolo Zamboni, an Italian surgeon, argued that multiple sclerosis, or MS, was not an autoimmune disease, but rather a "blockage" that could be alleviated by widening the veins in the brain. That thesis was rejection globally among experts, except in one place: Canada.
Zamboni's venoplasty ideas spread through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube so successfully that half of all Canadians now know about this procedure. In fact, over 500 Facebook events and pages coordinate patient advocacy groups to promote this treatment, and the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada and the U.S. National Multiple Sclerosis Society are using public resources to fund studies to refute the unproven claims.
"These studies consistently show no association," said Roger Chafe, director of pediatric research at Memorial University in Newfoundland and author of the study in the journal Nature. "The case indicates the unprecedented pressures that politicians can now face to alter research priorities even in the absence of credible scientific evidence."
Doctors, researchers and the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada don't advocate the controversial treatment, but they are having a difficult time tackling the widespread attention due to social media sites.
"In this new social-media environment, researchers and clinicians need to engage more actively with the public to articulate the science validating, or debunking, novel treatments," Chafe said. "When patient groups are using social media to advocate and mobilize, scientists must use similarly effective tools to communicate."
Part of the problem is that patients who have had the surgical procedure show their improvements on sites like YouTube. But medical experts point out that improvements are often a result of the "placebo effect," and those who have had a positive result are more prone to post their cases than those who had little or no improvement.
While severe complications are rare, at least two patients have died after the vein-widening procedure, which costs between $10,000 and $20,000. So far, national MS societies in Canada and the U.S. have funded more than $2 million into researching Zamboni's theory, and the Canadian government is pledging even more.

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