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Facebook is Bombarding Cancer Patients With Ads for Unproven Treatments

Accepted submission by upstart at 2022-06-27 13:01:43
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Facebook is bombarding cancer patients with ads for unproven treatments [technologyreview.com]:

Unproven treatments can also interact poorly with conventional treatments like chemotherapy should a patient decide to pursue alternative care on their own. Moreover, simply delaying the start of proven therapies by detouring into unproven ones can allow the cancer to advance, complicating and diminishing the effectiveness of further treatment.

Johnson’s research [oup.com] has demonstrated worse survival rates for patients who seek unproven cancer treatments at first. In a 2017 study [oup.com], he found that after about five years, patients with breast cancer who delayed conventional treatment in favor of alternative medicine were more than five times more likely to die.

An ad containing a false claim about hyperthermia as a cancer treatment, captured by Autar in August 2020.

There’s the financial burden, too—because clinics like CHIPSA aren’t generally covered by insurance, patients often have to raise money to afford their treatments. One recent GoFundMe campaign for a cancer patient seeking treatment at CHIPSA included a screenshot of a bill for the “base amount” he’d have to pay. It was $36,500 for three weeks of inpatient care in Mexico. That cost would increase once the facility decided on a treatment plan.

CHIPSA has spent about $5,000 since mid-2018 advertising on Meta about social issues, politics, or elections, according to information available in the Ad Library before Meta removed two of its ads. CHIPSA did not respond to requests for details on its ad spending or the cost of the treatments it offers.

Gorski is blunt about his view on whether Facebook will effectively address cancer misinformation: “The only real way to combat such misinformation on Facebook would require an army of fact checkers that Facebook is never going to pay for, given its past record even on covid-19 misinformation and dangerous political conspiracy theories.”

And as the University of Washington’s Moran points out, misinformation like this rarely stays confined to the platform where it’s originally posted. While Facebook plays a key role in getting sensational claims about dubious cancer treatments in front of desperate patients, the groups and ads carrying those claims often link to other sites and networks that reinforce them.

Johnson, using data from 2017 to 2019, has observed [nih.gov] that articles and videos containing myths about cancer treatment often receive more social media engagement than those from “safe” sources. And although it’s tricky to say for sure, his and other research in this area suggests that as many as one in three online articles or videos posted online about cancer may contain harmful misinformation.

“Especially when you are experiencing a medical crisis, you are looking at an incredible amount of information,” Moran says. “It seems good to you that you are doing your research, you're going from one site to the next. But they all belong to the same ecosystem.”

If you or a loved one has been treated for cancer, we'd like to talk to you for future stories about sensational health claims on social media. If you are a member of support groups for cancer patients or their loved ones, or have experience with clinics like the ones mentioned in this story, please be in touch: abby.ohlheiser@technologyreview.com [mailto]


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