Cancer, 30% of cancer news on social networks is fake and …

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Colorectal cancer is the second most frequent form of cancer in Italy

Cancer, 30% of the cancer news on social networks is fake. The Comunicareilcancro.it website is born against fake news

30% of the cancer news published on social networks is false and can cause dangerous consequences. A recent study analyzed 200 of the articles on the most popular cancers on social networks, 50 for each of the four most frequent cancers (breast, colorectal, prostate, lung). From the survey, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, it emerged that about one third (30.5%) contains harmful information because, for example, it can lead to postpone or even not follow life-saving therapies, resort to dangerous “do-it-yourself” methods based on potentially toxic products or the use of alternative tools without scientific validity. Not only. The great echo of these articles, which received an average of 2,300 shares compared to 1,500 of certified news, is also worrying.

To encourage the dissemination of correct information in the oncology field, the “comunicilcancro” project was born, which includes a dedicated portal (www.comunicareilcancro.it) and the activation of profiles on the main social networks. The project, presented today in a virtual press conference, also aims to teach communicators (in particular doctors, nurses, journalists, representatives of patient associations and institutions, communication managers of public and private health companies and pharmaceuticals), the rules for speaking and writing about cancer and health in a correct and effective way and with this in mind the first university specialization course dedicated to these topics (“Communicating in Oncology, Medicine and Health”) was born.

“In the media there are still too many fake news about cancer – says Rossana Berardi, Professor of Medical Oncology at the Polytechnic University of Marche and Director of the Oncology Clinic of Ospedali Riuniti in Ancona -. And social networks are the main responsible for this process of bad information. The ‘comunicilcancro’ project aims to promote correct information in this area and through an academic training to train health professionals and disseminators by transmitting the fundamental rules to communicate not only cancer, which represents the paradigm of diseases also for its great emotional impact, but more in general health and medicine. A study, which we conducted on 75 Italian health professionals and which is in the process of being published, showed that half of these did not receive a specific training in the communication field and 93.4% expressed the will to be able to undertake or improve the pro first training “.

To take a picture of the fake health news conveyed in 2019, the American broadcaster NBC News analyzed the data to understand where they spread and how people interacted with them, starting with 50 articles that, alone, generated over 12 million. between shares, reactions and comments on the web, especially on Facebook.

“Cancer has emerged as the most popular disinformation topic on health and fake news ranges from unproven therapies such as ginger defined as 10,000 times more effective than chemotherapy to the idea that a mysterious group with economic interests is hiding the definitive cure against cancer – underlines Mauro Boldrini, Director of Communication of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (AIOM) and teacher of the course -. These hoaxes risk having disruptive effects. We know that the internet is an important source of information retrieval, used by 3 out of 4 cancer patients. And we cannot ignore the role of social networks, considering them as media of series b. Our goal is to ” govern ” this phenomenon, providing all-round tools to healthcare professionals and to all those who have developed an interest in communication but who still have little awareness of the professional use of digital platforms Cancer.it, we want to create an agora of discussion and comparison on these issues “. “The revolution imposed by social media in communicating the ‘cancer problem’ also forces healthcare professionals to learn how to use these digital tools – continues Prof. Berardi -. Social networks can become important weapons in the fight against cancer. Their potential. ‘aggregative networks allow to expand the network of users (not only doctors, but also patients and citizens) to involve them directly in the activities, for example, of scientific societies and patient associations, thus favoring their viral spread. networks also make it possible to create awareness campaigns and promote healthy lifestyles, reaching specific population groups, but they are still little used in this sense. Instagram, for example, can be used to communicate the rules of cancer prevention to the most ‘ young people, less present on Facebook and Twitter “. In 2020, 377,000 new cases of cancer were estimated in Italy.

“Oncology represents the medical area that in recent years has recorded the greatest changes and the prognosis of cancer diseases has changed a lot, which is why both the media and citizens must no longer associate the concept of incurability with cancer. ‘- explains Francesco Cognetti, President of FOCE (Federation of Oncologists, Cardiologists and Hematologists) -. Scientific progress can be summarized in some data: living people affected by cancer, in Italy, were less than one and a half million at the beginning of the nineties, two million and 250 thousand in 2006, 2 million and 800 thousand in 2013, 3 million and 600 thousand in 2020. Today, many forms of cancer can be cured, thanks to prevention and innovative therapies, and many can be lived with for a long time , thanks to care that is increasingly respectful of the quality of life. It is necessary to communicate these scientific advances clearly without feeding illusions, which undermine the trust of citizens in science and institutions. health ions “. “In the oncology field, bad information is more harmful than in other fields, because it impacts public health and potentially on patients, who risk making wrong decisions for their treatment path – says Mauro Silvestrini, Vice Dean and Dean elected of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Polytechnic University of Marche – Communicating cancer and, more generally, medicine and health correctly represents a weapon to be exploited also in terms of public health and is a formidable educational tool for the entire population. But, to do so, you need to know the mechanisms of communication. The University plays a fundamental role in the training of health professionals, hence the choice to activate the first university specialization course that intends to teach these processes “.

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