Jamaine Punzalan

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1738115635406jonathan-velasquez-c1ZN57GfDB0-unsplash.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Jonathan Velasquez, Unsplash </span></span></span></div><p>Unfounded cancer cures, dubious anti-vaccine narratives, and false claims that neurological disorders can be &quot;reversed&quot; through diets: influential American and European podcasters are peddling harmful health misinformation while largely escaping scrutiny, researchers say.</p><p>The problem will come under the spotlight this week as Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic with a longstanding reputation of promoting health misinformation, faces US Senate grilling over his nomination to be President Donald Trump&#x27;s health secretary. </p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/11/14/trump-names-vaccine-skeptic-rfk-to-head-health-dept-736">Trump names vaccine skeptic RFK to head health dept</a></div><p>Falsehoods on podcasts, which experts warn are fueling mistrust in conventional medicine, often go unchecked as fact-checkers must sift through hours of transcripts.</p><p>They can quickly be amplified when short clips extracted from podcasts ricochet across social media.</p><p>Earlier this month, actor and director Mel Gibson said on the Joe Rogan Experience -- the number two podcast on Spotify in the United States -- that some of his friends had overcome stage four cancer after taking the antiparasitic drugs ivermectin and fenbendazole.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/celebrities/2025/1/16/trump-names-mel-gibson-sylvester-stallone-jon-voight-as-hollywood-ambassadors-0711">Trump names Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight as Hollywood &#x27;ambassadors&#x27;</a></div><p>The Canadian Cancer Society said those treatments were &quot;not scientifically proven,&quot; adding that such misinformation was &quot;dangerous&quot; as it gives false hope to people battling the disease.</p><p>The podcast garnered millions of views, while posts focused on Gibson&#x27;s claim spread across platforms such as Facebook, X, and Instagram, AFP&#x27;s fact-checkers reported.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;OFF THE CUFF&#x27;</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>With podcasts easy to launch, huge volumes of audio content are being produced.</p><p>&quot;The nature of medium itself makes it challenging to detect misinformation and also makes it more likely that false claims will circulate,&quot; Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told AFP.</p><p>&quot;Often these conversations are really off the cuff, which is part of their authentic appeal, longer than your average media clip, and more frequent -- sometimes for hours, multiple times a day.&quot;</p><p>A study she published in 2023 examined over 36,000 episodes produced by 79 prominent podcasters. It found that one out of every 20 episodes -- and more than 70 percent of those podcasters -- included at least one &quot;unsubstantiated or false claim.&quot;</p><p>And with the popularity of podcasts soaring around the world, the phenomenon is not limited to the United States.</p><p>In December, a BBC investigation found that prominent host Steven Bartlett was amplifying health misinformation on &quot;Diary of a CEO,&quot; his top-ranked podcast on Spotify.</p><p>Its analysis of 15 health-related episodes found that each contained an average of 14 &quot;harmful health claims.&quot;</p><p>Flight Studio, the podcast production company owned by Bartlett, told the broadcaster their guests were offered &quot;freedom of expression&quot; and were &quot;thoroughly researched.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;DUTY OF CARE&#x27;</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>One London-based fitness coach, Richard Holley, told AFP he was drawn to a &quot;Diary of a CEO&quot; episode that featured a guest advocating for a keto diet to treat cancer.</p><p>Holley said he did not feel the need to &quot;fact-check&quot; the dubious claim, floated casually as a lifestyle recommendation rather than scientific fact, but added in hindsight that &quot;one has to be cautious.&quot;</p><p>Podcasts reaching millions of listeners are a lucrative business, with Bartlett telling UK media his show was expected to generate 20 million pounds ($25 million) last year, mainly from advertising.</p><p>Some leading podcasters regularly featuring guests accused of undermining evidence-based medicine -- and failing to challenge them -- have created financial incentives to amplify misinformation, experts say.</p><p>&quot;Prominent podcasters have invested in wellness and health ventures at the same time as they have given airtime to health misinformation,&quot; Cecile Simmons, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told AFP.</p><p>Last year, a Rogan-backed health supplement company was hit with a lawsuit over false advertising about one of its products, which was regularly promoted on his podcast.</p><p>Researchers say the medium, which has also strongly influenced political discourse, has long been poorly regulated for accuracy.</p><p>In a rare action in 2023, YouTube removed a video of podcaster Jordan Peterson interviewing Kennedy for violating its policy prohibiting vaccine misinformation.</p><p>&quot;Given podcasts&#x27; reach and popularity, we need to think about how to ensure duty of care towards users, while preserving some of the creative freedoms that the medium allows,&quot; said Simmons.</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div>

<p>Unfounded cancer cures, dubious anti-vaccine narratives, and false claims that neurological disorders can be "reversed" through diets: influential American and European podcasters are peddling harmful health misinformation while largely escaping scrutiny, researchers say.</p>

Unfounded cancer cures, dubious anti-vaccine narratives, and false claims that neurological disorders can be "reversed" through diets: influential American and European podcasters are peddling harmful health misinformation while largely escaping scrutiny, researchers say.

Influential podcasts fuel 'harmful' health misinformation

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Influential podcasts fuel 'harmful' health misinformation

Agence France-Presse

Published Jan 29, 2025 09:56 AM PHT

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