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Bad Influence

How the Internet Hijacked Our Health

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Bad Influence

By: Deborah Cohen
Narrated by: Deborah Cohen
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“This superb book is an essential guide to the wild world of internet health.”—Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-Processed People

When did we start trusting influencers over doctors?

You used to see a doctor. Now you go online.

Want to track your blood sugar? Your heart rate? Your sleep? You can. Need to focus? Want to lose weight fast? Everything is a click away.

But who is regulating this?

As hospital wait times grow ever longer and some patients are priced out of medical care altogether, influencers have filled the gap. From doctors promoting new therapies, to entrepreneurs selling solutions, these self-styled experts glow with good health and guarantee results.

But they are not familiar with our medical history. They don’t owe us a duty of care. And they’re rarely either qualified or impartial. So why do we trust them?

©2026 Deborah Cohen (P)2026 Blackstone Publishing History & Commentary Medicine & Health Care Industry Physical Illness & Disease Policy & Administration Health Heartfelt
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Profits rise. Zealous engagement manufactures epidemics, killing genuine awareness. Wellness rhetoric yields lucrative, unverified knowledge.

“"Bad Influence" argues that separating medical fact from fiction is becoming harder online”

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I listened to the first hour and 17 minutes then gave up. tldr: Quacks and charlatans are using the Internet to sell snake oil cures for what ails you. This isn't new, charlatans have been around for centuries. The author doesn't discuss how social media has fed the anti-science, anti-vax movement. My field is stuttering treatments. In 1992, consumer information about stuttering treatments was non-existent. I went to a university library and read the textbooks and journals. There was one evidence-based treatment available that helped some people somewhat. I then worked with leading speech-language pathologists in the field to develop four evidence-based treatments that, when combined, are highly effective. By 2012 we had studies in the journals and we expected that the next ten years would be a "golden age" in which we eradicated this speech disorder. Then teenagers started texting instead of talking and dropped out of speech therapy. Then Facebook groups became dominated by individuals who insisted that nothing works, persons who stutter can never learn to talk fluently, don't take your child to speech therapy because speech therapy causes stuttering, and adults shouldn't go to speech therapy because it will make their stuttering worse. These aren't the people selling fake cures that the author of this book talks about. We also have plenty of fakes cures for stuttering, usually email courses, for sale on the Internet. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people aren't getting paid, who aren't selling anything, they just spend their copious free time attacking anyone who says there are evidence-based stuttering treatments. This is part of the anti-science movement that we have seen with vaccines. These trolls drive anyone who is knowledgable about stuttering treatments out of the Facebook groups.

Just old ideas, missing the anti-science trend

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