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

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...

"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...

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

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

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/

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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🌍 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...

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...

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...

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...

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).

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/