Cancer patients are dying after following fake cures peddled online, according to the world’s top doctors.
AI and online influencers have persuaded cancer patients to reject conventional medicine in favour of intermittent fasting, essential oils, oxygen treatments and the Mediterranean diet, doctors said.
In an unprecedented intervention in Chicago at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, the world’s largest cancer conference, they said they were “losing the battle for communication”.
Dr Julie Gralow, ASCO chief medical officer, said the global body wanted to counter the ability of AI to “hallucinate” and spit out false information, and to guide patients towards the facts.
In her own practice, she has faced repeated tragedies when patients had gone online to search for alternative medicines for cancer, ending up finding a clinic in Mexico promising vitamin C infusions, and caffeine colonics.
She said she tried to “gently ease” patients into more evidence-based treatments, often after a scan showed their tumour was not shrinking, but in several cases it was too late by the time patients changed their mind.
“It’s tragic, we mourn,” she said. “You think about what could we have done differently? What should we have offered? But we can’t force anybody to do anything.”
‘Miracle cures’ warning
England’s most senior doctor last night said the same trends were sweeping the UK, warning of “an alarmingly high level of misinformation” about cancer online.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said lives were at risk because of “miracle cures” and “fairy tales” on the internet.
He said social media could help to provide a supportive community for those diagnosed with cancer – but was instead fuelling “an alarmingly high level of misinformation”.
“I would urge people to be sceptical of any ‘miracle cures’ you may see on social media around cancer, and use trusted, credible sources like the NHS website or your care team to verify anything you are unsure on – because these fairy tales aren’t just misleading, they can be harmful,” he said.
Meanwhile, Richard Simcock, chief medical officer at charity Macmillan Cancer Support, warned of an “exponential” increase in misinformation.
The oncologist said: “I have recently seen two young women who have declined all proven medical treatments for cancer and are instead pursuing unproven and radical diets, promoted on social media.
“As a doctor, I want to be able to use the best available therapies to help people with cancer.
“A person is perfectly entitled to decline that therapy but when they do that on the basis of information which is frankly untrue or badly interpreted it makes me very sad.
“It’s clear that we have work to do to build back trust in evidence-based medicine.”
One paper presented at the conference found that all of the videos analysed on TikTok about prostate cancer screening presented “low or moderate quality content” about the topic.
Another study found that half the population surveyed “did not trust” information from scientists about cancer.