Health Influencers: Watching the Transition to Insanity in Real Time

colinchamp August 1, 2022 4 Comments

For those of us that follow the health world, ranging from scientists and researchers to “influencers” and the often bizarre overlap, there has been a clear pattern emerging over the last five years. Researchers and scientists who start to get a following on social media, etc. realize they have to keep churning out “new” information to their followers to stay relevant or attract new followers. In fact, many advertisements, book contracts, etc. look primarily at follower numbers to dictate sponsorship. Social media requires engagement, usually favoring bold claims, arguments, and other charged topics that pull people in and make them comment.

This is where the problems start. Things get a bit tough for them when they realize there is not a continual production of “new” health information being produced, and certainly not a constant stream of quality information. As a result, they eventually start pumping out poor quality information, ultimately making bold claims from thin studies. When this fails, they throw around some personal pictures, anecdotes, maybe televise their personal and family life in real-time, and so on and so forth. It spirals further and further downward until we watch once great voices in the health field act absolutely insane and morph before our eyes into a completely different person. We have even seen it with a bunch of our “leaders” in the radiation oncology field, as once reserved scholars now spend their free time throwing punches in Twitter fights.

I was at a recent symposium headlined by an unnamed prior legit researcher turned “influencer” who presented a mouse study assessing the rate of saturated fatty acids crossing the bowels and proceeded to tell the audience she no longer drinks cream in her coffee because of this very preclinical study. It was a bizarre study to present from the start, and even more bizarre and very unscientific conclusions followed. The audience was not biting. In fact, several researchers in the audience raised their hands and proceeded to ask how she could possibly come to these sensationalistic conclusions based on the tiny study. One researcher dug in and gave it to her in front of everyone—yet he was absolutely correct in his criticism. 

It was clear that she did not have much new to talk about, so she pumped a poor study and made a bold claim. She took social media metrics, those that reward outlandish behavior, and brought them to an academic conference. This audience wasn’t buying it. 

Several of us were chatting over coffee the following morning about the garbage that is coming out in this areas and the number of former legitimate researchers that we have watched morph into social media whack jobs (for lack of a better term). Once again, social media as a disseminator of information sounds great at first, but as Neil Postman warned us decades ago in his masterpiece and must-read, Amusing Ourselves to Death, we cannot separate the information presented from the media source presenting it. As social media is set up to favor and spread the insanity, wether we are talking about pop music, celebrity gossip, or even health research, insanity nearly always ensues.

I saw the writing on the wall a couple years ago as several individuals I largely respected turned insane before my eyes posting crazy comments, fighting with people, and posting very personal family images. At that point, I began to distance myself from social media and instead focus on my more intimate newsletter. I also gained back significant time and now spend this time with my girls. Besides the fact that they will be thanking me in a about 15 years for not posting embarrassing pictures of them for the world to see, I get to spend more quality time with them and avoid going insane in real time on social media. This allows me to keep a more intimate discussion with you all, and for that, I am grateful.

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