Health misinformation and dangerous rumours amplified by influencers and social media

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

Falsehoods on podcasts, which experts warn are fuelling mistrust of conventional medicine, often go unchecked as fact-checkers must sift through hours of transcripts.

They can quickly be amplified when short clips extracted from podcasts ricochet across social media.