How Can FDA Combat Medical Misinformation?

FDA commissioner Robert Califf says truth is “losing the [misinformation] battle right now” and FDA and many other stakeholders can and must do more to try to protect people from medical misinformation. In an interview with the online newsletter Stat News, Califf said the agency may need to update its guidance on how manufacturers of FDA-regulated products should deal with online misinformation about their products.

In addition to looking for ways in which FDA can take on misinformation head-on, Califf said, FDA might also be able to find a clear path to better support drug, vaccine, and device makers whose products are targets of misinformation.

“Let’s say you have a company whose product is being maligned with misinformation,” Califf said. “That company, it seems to me, does have a right to speak back about that.” He said the agency’s 2014 draft guidance on how drugmakers can use social media may need to be updated to reflect the current climate. FDA would still have to guard against “companies taking license to go well beyond combating the misinformation and [instead] promoting inappropriately.”

Califf rejected, however, the proposal by some that FDA should put more direct pressure on social media platforms. He said that neither the law nor the current political climate would permit the agency to take such action. “We have a Congress which is watching carefully and will react if we overstep our bounds,” he said…. “Putting pressure on companies is not something that we can do unless there’s a specific law that directs us to do it.”

Califf said that fighting misinformation requires the support of professional associations, individual healthcare workers, and educational institutions, which he says may have more resources and flexibility to act than a government agency.

He cited a recent study that suggests that the problem of health misinformation might be even more widespread and thorny than he realized. He said that’s another reason he wants a whole-of-society approach to health misinformation.

“No one I can find believes that FDA or even the federal government can solve this problem,” he said. “It can do more, and we can do a better job, but we need a vast network of people who are dedicated to the truth.”