The most viral health misinformation in 2019 was on the topics of cancer, unproven cures and vaccines, according to an NBCNews review.
) report from a Florida Fox affiliate on an experimental breast cancer vaccine. The article was shared by 1.8 million users.
Overall, cancer was the subject of the most popular kind of health misinformation, with viral articles promoting unproven cures for cancer making up roughly a third of our list. Marijuana was one of the most popular alleged cures in the genre, which correlates with audience demand: Stanford University researchersthat online searches for cannabis and cancer had grown at 10 times the rate of other standard medical therapies.
Dozens of viral articles hosted on rings of click bait health misinformation sites suggested we should fear processed foods while embracing other so-called natural cures without medical evidence, often sandwiched between ads for the very supplements proposed as miracles. “Ginger is 10,000x more effective at killing cancer than chemo,” reads the headline of an article that generated over 800,000 engagements.
But not all the year’s fake health news was hopeful; a more sinister message misinformed the topic of vaccines. Though vaccines are considered safe by the medical and the scientific community at large, a few well-funded anti-vaccination activists without medical training or expertise have promoted the false claim that vaccines cause harm and death.
The viral Children’s Health Defense articles misinterpret existing research to stoke fears that vaccines might be dangerous for children and pregnant women. Stop Mandatory Vaccination’s articles are accounts from parents who claim a baby's death was the result of a vaccination.
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