HCPs Want Pharmas to Do More to Combat Health Misinformation: Report

A new report finds that physicians are increasingly spending their time with patients correcting mis- and disinformation, and they want more help from biopharma companies in heading off those health-focused inaccuracies. 

We. Communications’ recently released “Narrative Distortion” report surveyed 500 doctors in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany and India, who shared that rampant misinformation has changed the way they practice and prescribe. 

They overwhelmingly want pharmas to step in and step up: A whopping 95% of the physicians surveyed agreed that biopharma companies should be responsible for correcting misleading information in their therapeutic areas, but barely a third believe those companies are currently “very effective” at doing so. 

In the doctors’ eyes, the most effective ways for drugmakers to publicly combat misinformation include launching educational campaigns defending the scientific process, putting out joint statements with medical associations to correct inaccurate narratives, quickly issuing corrections as soon as those narratives arise and putting forth top leaders to defend their science in high-visibility forums like interviews and op-eds. 

HCPs are also looking for more support from biopharmas in their own efforts to correct misinformation. The respondents said that most valuable would be patient-facing materials they can hand out at consultations, clear talking points and evidence summaries to help guide their conversations about popular...