I was so delighted to join @publichealthpod.bsky.social with @spidermaani.bsky.social to discuss our latest findings on the big business of #wellness based on our recent paper also with @marcozenone.bsky.social and Ben Hawkins. Give it a listen! 🎧

Public Health On Call Podcast@publichealthpod.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The wellness industry can help to promote healthy living, but it can also be at odds with the population-level interventions of public health. @karremannancy.bsky.social and @spidermaani.bsky.social discuss "Big Wellness". 🔗 podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/the-rise-of-...

The wellness industry’s influence goes beyond dubious health claims. Our new article led by @karremannancy.bsky.social with @spidermaani.bsky.social and Benjamin Hawkins examines the wellness industry from a commercial determinants of health perspective. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Open access ⤵️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... With thanks to co-authors @marcozenone.bsky.social @spidermaani.bsky.social and Ben Hawkins #PublicHealth #HealthPolicy #CommercialDeterminants #CDOH #Wellness

The Political Economy of Wellness: Commercial Determinants of a Burgeoning Industry

Policy Points Wellness has grown into a multi-trillion-dollar industry encompassing a multitude of products and practices that affect health and well-being. Applying a lens of commercial determin...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

New paper out! 📢 The #wellness industry is a multi-trillion $ force: selling products, shaping norms, and now influencing policy. But it's rarely analysed in the way we scrutinize tobacco or pharma. We apply a commercial determinants of health lens to wellness, including #MAHA. Short thread 🧵⤵️

New study 📝 We audited 5 AI chatbots to assess how they respond to health questions in misinformation-prone contexts. 49.6% of responses were rated problematic (e.g., suggesting alternative cancer clinics), with limited guardrails and many poor/fabricated citations. bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/4...

Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies... Our team's health misinformation audit on popular and free AI chatbots found nearly 50% of responses were problematic. Link: bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/4... Team: @nbtiller.bsky.social; @marcozenone.bsky.social; @caulfieldtim.bsky.social, et al.

New in @stemcellreports.bsky.social: our study led by @srmarcon.bsky.social w/ @caulfieldtim.bsky.social looks at how “stem cell” supplements are sold on Amazon and whether the marketing aligns with U.S. & Canadian regulations. Conclusion: Amazon can do better to not enable bunk. cc @uottawa.ca

September vibes on campus @uottawa.ca

Anti-science sentiment is everywhere, but Canada is standing firm: #ScienceMatters! Great to see this statement and its signatories. scienceupfirst.com/sciencematte... @caulfieldtim.bsky.social

#ScienceMatters. Important to clearly counter demonstrably false bunk. Broad consensus that: - Vaccines do NOT cause autism - Ivermectin NOT effective against cancer, covid, etc - COVID vaccines do NOT cause "sudden death" or "turbo cancer" See statement: scienceupfirst.com/sciencematte...

News Creator Corps Launches Pilot Program To Train Content Creators To Fight Misinformation. Interesting. Applications are open. newscreatorcorps.org/news/2025/09...

News Creator Corps Launches Pilot Program To Train Content Creators To Fight Misinformation - News Creator Corps

The inaugural class of selected creators will participate in an 8-week program featuring elements of content strategy and fact-checking training led by media professionals and experts.

newscreatorcorps.org

"Misinformation often offers simple, comforting answers, while real medicine is complex, uncertain and sometimes difficult to accept. Fake cancer claims can feel convincing because they seem to eliminate the uncertainty about whether treatment will work..." theconversation.com/how-cancer-m...

How cancer misinformation exploits the way we think

Why false cancer claims feel true and what to do about it.

theconversation.com

"Meta lawyers intervened to shape internal research that could have flagged risks." www.bbc.com/news/article...

Meta covered up potential child harms, whistleblowers claim

Meta denies the allegations and described the "claims at the heart" of the Senate hearing as "nonsense".

bbc.com

The WHO Foundation’s acceptance of anonymous donations risks losing public trust, as it raises transparency concerns about conflicts of interest and potential undue influence. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s... @spidermaani.bsky.social

Alarm as WHO accepts increasing amount of dark money from corporate donors

Experts say millions in corporate funding and concealment of donors’ identities raises key conflict-of-interest concerns

theguardian.com

Important study in light of recent news on MLMs as therapists: "While AIH could complement less-complex services [in mental health], it could not replace the therapeutic value of human interaction" @skyebarbic.bsky.social jopm.jmir.org/2025/1/e69449/

Perception of AI Use in Youth Mental Health Services: Qualitative Study

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has made significant advancements in healthcare. A key application of AI in mental health is the use of AI-powered chatbots; however, empirical evid...

jopm.jmir.org

A new @newsguard.bsky.social report finds "false information nearly doubled from 18% to 35% in responses to prompts on news topics." www.axios.com/2025/09/04/p...

Exclusive: Study finds chatbots are amplifying even more misinformation

The rate at which popular AI services amplify or fail to flag falsehoods has doubled in a year, per NewsGuard.

axios.com

ChatGPT not only failed to intervene but also "offered to help him write a suicide note to his parents." www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Teen killed himself after ‘months of encouragement from ChatGPT’, lawsuit claims

Open AI to change way it responds to users in mental distress as parents of Adam Raine allege bot not safe

theguardian.com

Over 1,000 current and former HHS call for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s resignation. abcnews.go.com/Health/1000-...

More than 1,000 current, former HHS employees sign letter calling on RFK Jr. to resign

More than 1,000 current and former employees across HHS signed a letter on Wednesday morning calling for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s resignation.

abcnews.go.com

AI “safety measures” leave much to be desired. The authors found that chatbots refusing disinformation (ex: “I cannot assist with creating false information") can be tricked simply by wrapping requests in innocent frames like “simulation.” theconversation.com/how-we-trick...

How we tricked AI chatbots into creating misinformation, despite ‘safety’ measures

Research reveals why simple prompts can bypass AI safeguards.

theconversation.com

New piece with @srmarcon.bsky.social in the @theconversation.com: Google searches for information about cancer lead to targeted ads from alternative clinics. theconversation.com/google-searc...

Google searches for information about cancer lead to targeted ads from alternative clinics

Alternative cancer clinics spent over an US$15 million on Google ad spaces, generating millions of website visits from people searching for cancer information.

theconversation.com

🇨🇦❤️

🌍 2024 saw half the world’s population voting. What did we learn about tech’s role in elections? Our final piece in the CIGI series explores key trends, from AI in campaigns to platform regulations, and what lies ahead for democracy. 📖 Read now: www.cigionline.org/articles/muc...

Much of the World Voted in 2024: What Did We Learn?

In our introduction to CIGI’s The World Votes, 2024 series last February, we wrote: “One year from now, people could inhabit very different political worlds than the ones that currently exist.” We wer...

cigionline.org

New paper led by @marcozenone.bsky.social in @misinforeview.bsky.social on how Google allows alternative cancer clinics to target the sensitive information queries of cancer patients so their ads appear with keywords #CDoH misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/goog...

Google allows advertisers to target the sensitive informational queries of cancer patients | HKS Misinformation Review

Alternative cancer treatments are associated with earlier time to death when used without evidence-based treatments. Our study suggests alternative cancer clinics providing scientifically unsupported ...

misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu

When anyone searches for information on cancer treatment options - they shouldn't see ads for scientifically unsupported treatment or ads targeting people who have exhausted their treatment options. Our new study (unfortunately) finds this is occurring misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/goog...

I love this framing. Deliberate disinformation campaigns are a public health risk, by @helenp-h.bsky.social. Power imbalances, conflicts of interests, and digital platform inaction compound the growing problem confronting public health. theconversation.com/deliberate-d...

Deliberate disinformation campaigns are a public health risk – but NZ has no effective strategy to deal with it

Studies have repeatedly shown false claims spread on social media and influence public perceptions, to the detriment of public health. But strategies to combat disinformation remain elusive.

theconversation.com

Spain to take action on fake news & disinformation. "These outlets and the platforms that host them must have a mechanism to facilitate citizens’ right to ask that false or inaccurate information that harms them be corrected publicly" www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

Spain introduces bill to combat online fake news

Minister calls bill demanding digital platforms publicly correct false information ‘good news for democracy’

theguardian.com

A good overview of strategies to study TikTok. Important caveat for the API: TikTok asks to see results prior to publication, may audit API use without notice). Many indirect ways to scrape data, too, that don’t require coding skills or disclosing your research objectives (example, Apify).

NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics@csmapnyu.org · 2y ago

TikTok's fate in the US remains up in the air, w/concerns about national security & Chinese influence. Yet, almost no rigorous research exists to inform these debates. At @brookings.edu, we outline 3 data access pathways researchers could use to understand TikTok's influence & the challenges of each

Narcissism associated with misinformation susceptibility? Yes. jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/js...

Harmful cancer misinformation circulates across all digital platforms. This study demonstrates how compelling, emotional narratives surrounding alternative care misleads users on TikTok. cc @caulfieldtim.bsky.social @cherylepeters.bsky.social @srmarcon.bsky.social www.jmir.org/2024/1/e60283/

Alternative Health and Conventional Medicine Discourse About Cancer on TikTok: Computer Vision Analysis of TikTok Videos

Background: Health misinformation is abundant online and becoming an increasingly pressing concern for both oncology practitioners and patients with cancer. On social media platforms, including the po...

jmir.org