Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19249

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Arnold M
Online groups are hotbed of promotion
Medical Marketing & Media 2010 11 15
http://www.mmm-online.com/online-groups-are-hotbed-of-promotion/article/191743/

Full text:

Social networks are a “Wild West” of medical misinformation, a study has found. More than one in four comments on Facebook diabetes communities is promotional in nature, generally for unapproved products, Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers said.
Though the researchers found “tentative support” for the health benefits of social media in the management of chronic disease—reporting patients sharing valuable insights into their conditions that they wouldn’t get from their doctor and providing each other emotional support – the volume of dubious information raises red flags.
The study’s authors looked at the 15 largest Facebook communities for diabetes patients and caregivers. In addition to the promotional comments, the researchers also identified “numerous instances of surveys, marketing pitches and efforts to recruit patients for clinical trials where the true identity of the poster could not be confirmed.”
The 15 sites had an average of 9,289 participants, and researchers evaluated 690 individual postings by 480 unique users. Twenty-seven percent “featured promotional activity and first-person testimonials around non-FDA approved products and services.”
“There certainly are public health benefits that can be garnered from these sites,” said senior author William Shrank, MD, MSHS, “but patients and doctors need to know it is really the Wild West out there.”
The study was underwritten by CVS Caremark and published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.