The Bottom Line on Fake Health News

The final questions about checking fake health news completely depend on you—what you know and what your gut tells you. Let’s take a look:

5. Does it match your prior knowledge?
We all come to the table with a certain amount of knowledge. When it comes to health, it may be from a high school health class, listening to a lecture by a doctor, or other ways you’ve learned reliable health facts. Does what you’re reading seem to agree or conflict with that? Science changes as we get newer technology to examine things we couldn’t before, but it should still line up with what you’ve learned.

6. The final question is the simplest: does it make any sense?
What does your gut tell you? Is it reasonable that someone with no training in the sciences could discover something millions of trained scientists couldn’t? Sure, there’s always the exception, but it still should seem reasonable.

Those questions, along with the ones from Tuesday and Thursday, are what I ask every time I see something that promises too much. You know the old saying: if something seems too good to be true, it often is.

Keep in mind, too, that fake news is often click bait, and sometimes the owners of the site don’t just want to get paid for your click—they want to plant something harmful on your computer. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “breaking news.” If it doesn’t ring true, don’t even click it.

 

The Bottom Line

I thought the California teacher did his students a great service. If you read the article, you know they now fact-check him as well. I welcome you to do the same thing to me. That’s why I provide references for what I write. My goal is to always be one of those reliable sources. I gladly submit to anyone who wants to fact-check me—and now you know how to do it.

What about things that are complicated? Two that come to mind are soy and artificial sweeteners such as sucralose. In both cases, I’ve examined the research that Internet authors have used to say that they’re bad for us and given you what the research really says. Because they’re in a form you can reprint and give to your clients, your doctor, or your know-it-all cousin, they’re for sale on my website. All Bottom Line PDFs contain all the references I used to verify the facts, as do the zip files for the MP3 versions, and now all Bottom Lines are available as MP3s. Check them out today.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: http://bit.ly/2ozc2kC