Combating
“Fake News” That Affects Vulnerable Cancer Patients
January 28, 2018
In order to prevent the dissemination of misinformation or “fake news”
regarding cancer treatments, The Macmillan Cancer Support Group has
hired a nurse full time to answer questions for patients seeking answers online
about their diagnosis. There are many
websites on the internet touting bogus cancer treatments. According to an
online article by the Independent Newspaper, “an estimated 3,450 people, or 4 per cent of Scottish
cancer patients, who looked online for information thought they were going
to die.” Many of these patients
are seeking information about their diagnosis but are finding misinformation
including websites that have claimed that “chemotherapy is a bigger killer than cancer itself”, or that “baking soda can cure cancer”. The role of the nurse will be to answer
questions for patients who about their illness and to direct patients to
reliable websites to gain the information they are seeking.[ 1PICTURE, 1 Quote,
3 Links, 148 Words}
As someone who is interested in making nursing my profession, i find this interesting. I think that when people are given bad news they tend to jump to conclusions rather quickly. So hearing there is a simple household product is a magic cure could easily trick someone who is vulnerable. On top of that they could read sometime that is more grim than expected. Having a nurse there to clear up any confusion would definitely help out cancer patients with their prognosis. Most of the people writing these fake stories online have probably never gone to medical school or nursing school so they wouldn't hold much credibility to begin with.
ReplyDeleteIt's important to take in information, but be able to filter through what's fake and what's real, or what's a closed perspective versus what's an open perspective. Actually, someone
ReplyDeleteI know was diagnosed with cancer and they used information from many different websites, including these ones, to decide what to do to treat it (being a doctor themselves). They did not blindly accept the information any one website stated, but looked at a wide variety of perspectives and opinions, since cancer research is varied and different researchers test for different things with different hypotheses and perspectives in mind.