I often hear that we need more doctors on social media fighting medical misinformation.
You know what the real problem is?
There aren’t enough folks following the doctors who are on social media fighting medical misinformation…
Where Are the Social Media Doctors Fighting Medical Misinformation?
Sure, more would likely be better, but you can’t get past the simple fact that those pushing quackery and medical misinformation can easily attract huge followings on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Your friendly pediatrician (tweetiatrician) combating that medical misinformation?
Not so much…
Is that because most of us like writing more than fighting for likes?
Probably.
It’s also likely a function of the simple fact that fake facts are more interesting than real facts.
Follow These Social Media Doctors Fighting Medical Misinformation
So now that you know that they exist, where are these people promoting science based medicine and fighting medical misinformation and which ones should you follow?
Here are some to get you started.
Gorski has been writing about medical misinformation on the Internet since before there was an Internet.
If you aren’t reading his blog Respectful Insolence, then you likely don’t know why quackademic medicine is such a problem, you may not have been aware of all of the players who have been scamming pushing complementary and alternative medicine over the years, and you might have never heard of misinformed consent. He is also active on Science Based Medicine, where he is a managing editor.
Like David Gorski, Steven Novella has been writing about pseudoscience for a long time, first at the NESS (the New England Skeptical Society) and then at The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, Neurologica, and Science-Based Medicine.
Are you following them?
Jennifer Gunter may be best known for calling out Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and her jade vaginal eggs, vaginal steaming, and other quackery. Active on Twitter, she also has a column in the New York Times, has a new book coming out, The Vagina Bible (pre-order it now!), and she is getting her own TV show!!!
She is another doctor you should be following, as she is doing a great job of calling out non-evidence based treatments.
And then there are these folks you should be reading and following (no, they are not all doctors…):
- Peter Hotez – @PeterHotez
- Tara C Smith – @aetiology
- Edzard Ernst – @EdzardErnst
- Steven Barrett – Quackwatch
- Harriet Hall – @HHSkepDoc – SkepDoc
- Skeptical Raptor – @skepticalraptor
- Scott Gavura – @PharmacistScott – Science-Based Pharmacy
- Nathan Boonstra –@PedsGeekMD – PedsGeek M.D.
- Mark Hoofnagle – @MarkHoofnagle – denialism.com
- @DocBastard – Stories from the Trauma Bay
- David Hawkes – @mrhawkes
- Neuroskeptic – @Neuro_Skeptic
- Reasonable Hank – @reasonable_hank
- Clay Jones – @SBMPediatrics
- Timothy Caulfield – @CaulfieldTim
- Mark Crislip – @MarkCrislip – EdgyDoc
- Britt Marie Hermes – @NaturoDiaries – Naturopathic Diaries
- John Snyder – @SciPeds
- René F. Najera – @EpiRen – EpidemioLogical
- Matt Carey – @LBRBAutism – Left Brain Right Brain
- Scott Krugman, MD – @Dr_ScottK
- Jaime Friedman, MD – @DrJaimeFriedman
- Fallacy Man – The Logic of Science
- Paul Gallagher – Losing in Lucky Country
- Rachel Vreeman – @rachelvreeman
- Alice Callahan – @scienceofmom
- Rachel Pearson – @HumanitiesMD
- thelonevirologist – @thelonevirologi – Virology tidbits
- The BBB Scientist – @scientistabe – The Blood-Brain Barrier Scientist
- Brian Dunning – @BrianDunning – skeptoid.com
- Phil Plait – @BadAstronomer – Bad Astronomy
- Amy Tuteur – @ATueur – The Skeptical OB
- Take That, Medicine!
- Sam Homola
That they all don’t have millions of followers is one of the reasons that folks fall for medical misinformation so easily.
It’s the reason that you might go to a chiropractor when you are having problems breastfeeding, even though you don’t really understand how chiropractic works.
And why you buy homeopathic “medicines” when your kids have colic or a runny nose, not understanding that you don’t get any active medicine when you buy something with homeopathy on the label.
From misinformation about vaccines to every type of alternative medicine scam out there, these folks have been writing and warning us about them for a long time.
Surprised when someone “breaks a story” about celebrity anti-vaxxers or the “latest” alternative medicine fad that is hurting folks? You wouldn’t be if you were following these folks fighting medical misinformation.
More on Social Media Doctors Fighting Medical Misinformation
- Who Are the Real COVID-19 Experts?
- A Parent’s Guide to Complementary and Integrative Medicine
- Is There Evidence for That Therapy, or No?
- What is a Lyme-Literate Doctor?
- Explaining the Correlation of Autism After Vaccines
- Best Vaccine Websites
- 100 Myths About Vaccines
- Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
- Pseudoscience Behind the Anti-Vaccine Movement
- SoMeDocs
- #tweetiatricians
- What’s the Harm?
- Encylopedia of American Loons
- Skeptics Dictionary
- Skeptic North
- Skeptoid
- Skepchick
- Skeptics Guide to the Universe
- NDs for Vaccines
- Evaluating Vaccines Requires Critical Thinking
- A Brief Look at Homeopathy for the Children
- Here be Dragons: Caring for Children in a Dangerous Sea of sCAM
- The American Academy of Pediatrics has an Integrative Medicine Problem
- How Pseudoscientific Quacks Defend Child Abuse
- The Role of Anecdotes in Science-Based Medicine
- The hierarchy of evidence: Is the study’s design robust?
- Quackery for Kids
- Linda Girgis, MD
- Kaiser Health News
- Injecting doubt: responding to the naturopathic anti-vaccination rhetoric
- Association for Healthcare Social Media
- Book – Do You Believe in Magic?
Last Updated on November 7, 2021 by Vincent Iannelli, MD
