For Your Health’s Sake, Do Not Keep Up with the Kardashians
By Casey L. Penn
The Information Superhighway. It can be a conduit to reliable, user-friendly health resources for patients (e.g., the Mayo Clinic’s easy-to-navigate website, with facts and information written with laypersons in mind), or it can be a passage into a morass of exploited trends, suspect sources, and even outright lies. Attach a celebrity name to a misguided medical opinion, and suddenly, you have a virus of sorts unleashed – one that rest, fluids, and even Google may be helpless to cure.
With the vast amount of information now literally at our fingertips, the frequency rate of social-media-driven health decisions is on the rise and likely to continue increasing. AMS President Scott Cooper, MD, commented on the tendency of people in general to look online for answers to their health questions. He remarked, “Unfortunately, it is just the way we do things now. There’s an answer to every question right here on our cell phones. I can Google how to tie a Windsor knot or how often I need to change the air filter on my four wheeler, and get a good, useful answer; therefore, I ought to be able to find out what’s wrong with my knee and what should be done about it.”
While Google can help with many DIY projects, there is danger in turning to it for help with fixing what ails our bodies. It cannot replace the physician’s office and the personal physician-patient encounter and should not be substituted for talking to your doctor. KevinMD writer Tracey Delaplain, MD, explained how Internet diagnosing could interfere with health care.* “The Internet breeds cyberchondria in some and false reassurance in others,” she wrote, adding, “Dr. Google doesn’t know you” and has no qualms about placing you “two clicks away from garbage medical advice and junk science.”
Alarmingly, Dr. Delaplain found that “Dr. Google is wrong 59 percent of the time,” according to Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “Those aren’t great odds if you’re betting on your health,” she added.
As this year’s presidential race revealed, there is a growing and disturbing incidence of news stories that are fabricated and then shared online. As these trickle into our news cycles, they can be mistaken for truth; by the time a forgery is discovered, the damage has already been done. Dr. Matthew Anderson (KevinMD.com) shared how the outcry from both political sides regarding fake news during the election related to his similar frustrations as a physician.** He wrote, “I could not help thinking during this campaign season that if you think fake news is bad for politics, you should try being a physician.”
Frontline primary care doctors – family physicians, internists, pediatricians – battle fake news and its fallout on a daily basis. “Within the limited amount of time they actually have with a patient, physicians are always trying disprove fake news with patients,” wrote Dr. Anderson. “We talk about the limited benefits of numerous vitamin supplements in the face of countless publications and marketing efforts that do not have to be evaluated by the FDA. Red yeast rice is not equivalent to statins for preventing heart disease. Gingko biloba will not treat dementia, no matter how organic or pure it is, no matter how many people write about its effectiveness.”
A well-known and relatively recent example of celebrity health choices and their trickle-down effect involves vaccinations. As Jenny McCarthy and other big names lauded the possible negative side effects of vaccinations as credible, a large number of parents across the country stopped vaccinating their children. There have since been disease outbreaks and even some deaths. While public service campaigns have restored some faith in FDA vaccination guidelines, doctors across the country are still fighting to strengthen patients’ confidence in routine vaccinations and recommended vaccination schedules.
Physicians have pushed back strongly in their fight, but Pediatrician Chad Hayes, MD, wrote to parents scared of vaccinations, “It’s not personal. We’re not mad at you. We are mad at people like Andrew Wakefield, who fabricated a study linking vaccines to autism and scaring millions of parents into avoiding vaccinations. We are confused by Jenny McCarthy, who has zero medical training, but somehow managed to lead a massive movement against immunizations. We are infuriated by Dr. Bob Sears, who certainly knows better, but capitalizes on your fear for his own profit, while placing your children’s lives at risk.” ***
Dr. Anderson also pointed out that these fictitious stories and their celebrity hawkers affect every clinic and hospital in America every day. “Inaccurate statements presented as facts should always be challenged,” he said, “and the medical community has a unique and difficult responsibility to engage it.”
Why do so many people believe fake news stories and perpetuate viral health fads like bone-soup diets or cupping as made famous by Michael Phelps last summer? Dr. Anderson believes that we can blame our own social psychology. He explained, “The whole fake news complex plays on the vulnerabilities of those searching for the information in the first place … information someone else doesn’t want you to know. If you can get this information, everything will be better — your life, your health, your economy, your country.”
We may also react because of information overload and the confusion that results from it. Michael O. Schroeder, a health editor at U.S. News, explained, “In the disorienting collision between the fast and furious Information Age and frighteningly complex, ever-evolving 21st century health care, many are at a loss … passionate accounts from public figures – celebrities – cut through much of the noise and communicate clearly, where health providers often don’t. So we take shortcuts – often unwittingly, unknowingly, and even necessarily.” ****
Doctors in Arkansas have expressed concern over these modern trends. “The problem we have on the ground is that people hear these things and they generalize – to us. These things erode respect and trust – in us,” said Dr. Cooper. “The fact remains, however, that there are experts you can trust. You have to find the ones you can trust, and that’s where we come in. The vast majority of what we know and give to our patients is the best there is to give. It’s not perfect, but it’s generally very good. We do our best to distill an enormous, complex, and ever-changing body of knowledge in a way that helps each patient, and we do actually have the education and training and the inclination to do it.”
In the wake of these half-truths and information overload, where can Arkansas patients turn for guidance?
When it comes to important health questions, Arkansans can without reservation turn to their primary care physicians or specialists for help and referrals. Physicians provide trusted advice for complex issues, of course, but also can offer information about those things you may be tempted to search online – flu shots, vaccinations, protecting against infectious diseases, stomach health, nutrition choices, etc.
Other sources of reliable health information in Arkansas include The Arkansas Medical Society, the Arkansas Health Department, the Arkansas Surgeon General, and state medical institutions like UAMS. These organizations have patients’ best interests at heart and are eager to provide reliable information and debunk myths. They want to answer questions to help parents make informed parenting decisions. Recommendations for such help include the surgeon general’s office or AMS for answers to questions about medical legislation – what should I know about medical marijuana, what should I know about telemedicine in Arkansas, etc.
Doctors can help refute myths, strengthen their own credibility, and most importantly, help their patients, through proactive communication. “A good doctor-patient relationship is going to take care of most of that,” summed Joseph Beck, MD, medical oncologist and a past president of AMS. “I give my patients permission to Google anything and then bring information to a visit to sort through it. It’s important to ask patients where they are getting information and why. If you ask them, they will tell you … I try to keep an open mind, especially if what they want to try isn’t harmful.
“One patient told me she wasn’t going to take chemotherapy because it said on Facebook it was poison. I did point out to the patient that Facebook was not a reliable source of chemotherapy information, that all of it is poison, and I’m trying to poison the cancer before I poison the patient. Any medication, taken in the wrong amount and schedule, could be considered poison. She agreed to chemotherapy. I also explain to the patient that these recommendations for chemotherapy are not something I just made up, that there are published medical guidelines recommending it.”
This is just the kind of personalized and educated reasoning that a Google search is unlikely to provide. For your next health question – simple or complex – consider first not a drive down the Information Superhighway but making appointment with your personal physician. If you need help finding one in your area, visit the Arkansas Medical Society’s online directory at www.arkmed.org/directory.
*http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/05/dr-google-will-never-know-you-or-care-as-much-as-i-do.html (May 3, 2015)
**http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2017/01/think-fake-news-bad-politics-try-physician.html
***http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/02/dear-anti-vax-parents-not-fault.html
****http://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2016-03-31/celebrities-vs-science-where-do-you-get-your-health-advice
Article originally appeared in the March 2017 issues of The Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society.