Asking MN to consider removing incorrect medical advice on medical threads…

[Larrythecatforpm]

It’s happened again, a poster has posted about type one diabetes symptoms in their child and there has been a whole barrel of incorrect medical nonsense.

One of these days it’s going to result in someone listening to incorrect and stupid advice and result in a death.

I am calling on MumsnetHQ to start removing incorrect medical advice comments. It needs to be done, sooner rather than later please.

They also don't remove links to sites to buy drugs that are prescription only in the UK but available abroad like melatonin.

Fully agree. I also hope that poster's son is ok

How would mumsnet HQ know whether or not the medical advice given is incorrect?

But that would rely on Mumsnet knowing what is correct and what isn’t.

I see so much bad (potentially dangerous) medical advice being given on threads but unless MN is going to employ a Doctor to monitor every post that is written in relation to health related question to decide whether it is appropriate for the post to published or not, then unfortunately it is the risk of using a public forum.

They'd also need to have a medical consultant for every field, mental health nurse, sonographer, radiologist, midwife, OT, physio, osteopath not to mention a vet. What about including a dietician when people claim certain foods do X or have eating disorders? Where would it stop?

There is already a disclaimer that the opinions may not be from actual medical professionals!

OP - This won’t work -

people on the internet WILL give wrong advice
medical
safeguarding
legal

etc etc etc

that’s the nature of the beast

No, but incases were posters DO know the correct medical advice & report wrong advice it should be removed. Literally a post about a child with T1 symptoms and someones accusing of them of just being hungover when it’s not even mentioned acohol in the post. It’s ridiculous and going to cause a death one day I see it regularly.

This too.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of this, I don't think it's workable. As PP have said they would need a team of medical consultants, plus the ability to distinguish between what is blatantly wrong on what is debatable depending on your medical standpoint.

They could definitely put much bigger disclaimers up though. Some of this does rest with the OP's as well - posting to thousands of unqualified randoms asking for medical advice isn't the wisest thing to do. Or maybe just say it isn't a site for medical questions and delete medical threads as they come up.

MNHQ can't possibly sit there all day Googling to see if all information given is correct.

The responsibility lies purely with the person asking for information, because they know full well they could be given incorrect advice.

People need to see chat forums for what they are.

No, but incases were posters DO know the correct medical advice & report wrong advice it should be removed

How would that work though OP if the person is in Ireland, Europe or anywhere else where health systems might be different to where the reader lives? What if my medical opinion or experience is different to another medical professionals and we all flag up posts?

I'm not disagreeing that terrible medical advice is everywhere but it's never that clear cut. How would mn know that the person reporting knows what they are talking about?

The only circumstances I can see it working in would be if there was a link provided by the person reporting to an NHS page stating the official medical advice. So for example if someone asked about drinking alcohol during pregnancy, there is explicit guidance on the NHS page that mumsnet hq could base their decision on. I'm not sure if that exists for the circumstances in the post you are referring to.

I asked mumsnet to take a post down that was riddled with incorrect advice (I’m an NHS consultant). They did not respond and it remains on the site.

I too was horrified that you would post about symptoms on a forum like this instead of seeking advice- I mean you’re literally better off asking Chat GPT than surveying a 100 people who’s neighbours dog once had similar symptoms.

Anyone who relies on mn for medical advice is an idiot to start with. The blame lies there. Call 111

People need to seek medical advice from medical professionals and not on here - that's the crux of the issue. It's not the job of MNHQ to police the threads for what is/is not accurate advice - plus how would they know? I doubt they have an array of people with medical qualifications ready and standing by to scrutinise every thread that mentions advice. People need to get advice from the proper place - the NHS - it's open 24/7 after all

How about people just taking personal responsibility?

For God’s sake this whole notion that other people should be considered responsible if some idiot does something stupid like take the words on a chat forum as gospel and comes to harm as a result needs to stop.

If someone in a licenced medical setting gives wrong advice and someone suffers detriment as a result then of course they’re at fault.

But if someone goes on to a chat forum and takes the advice of someone who goes by a random nickname, then they and they alone are to blame if they follow that advice and something bad happens.

We’re all adults here. We’re all responsible for our own lives and the decisions we make. Nobody else.

I think asking for medical advice on a forum is foolhardy. Even when someone professes to be a doctor or nurse, they could be anyone. 111, pharmacies and A&E are the appropriate places to seek advice.
I'm not keen on the WLI threads either, where people are advising slim people how to provide deceitful photographs in order to get a prescription.

The trouble is that once MNHQ take responsibility for removing inaccurate medical info, then people will have a greater tendency to believe that posts that remain are accurate, because they haven't been deleted.

And MNHQ's legal liability will potentially be increased, because, having taken responsibility in some cases they can't reasonably deny it in others.

Much better, and more workable, therefore, for MNHQ to do as they do now -- simply make it clear that (as we should all know in any case) there is no reason to trust what is said by forum randomers.

And of course anyone who believes info in a post to be wrong can say so in the thread.

We do have personal responsibility. MNHQ can't replace that.

On most fb groups/forums where people go for support with their conditions, i.e. condition specific groups, medical advice is not allowed and those posts are removed.

So maybe the medical board should be removed altogether.

There's a massive difference between a kind 'better safe than sorry, get him checked out' and 'he's obviously got a hangover/it's been hot, he's dehydrated' which is what that spectacularly unpleasant poster was saying.
But overall yes, perhaps ALL medical advice should be banned because anyone can say they are a GP and how would anyone know otherwise.

Thanks for raising this @Larrythecatforpm . We do understand the concern, especially where children’s symptoms are involved.

We can’t, though, safely verify medical advice posted on the boards. MNHQ aren’t medical professionals, and if we started removing posts on the basis that advice was medically wrong, there’s a real risk that anything left standing would appear to have been checked or approved by us.

We might step in where something looks clearly risky but this is case-by-case and so please do report anything you think we should see.

We're always very clear that Mumsnet isn’t a substitute for medical advice and we think our users are able to exercise their own judgement here. If anyone is worried, they should contact 111, their GP, a pharmacist, or 999/A&E as appropriate.

Thanks
MNHQ

@BeckyAMumsnet perhaps there should be a permanent warning header on the health threads, pointing out that there are safer options than thread eg phone 111, see a pharmacist, phone gp etc.
It might make posters think twice before relying on information from unknowns.

Hmmm I find this quite paternalistic tbh.

There are some conditions that are routinely dismissed by medical professionals - for example, endometriosis. Why shouldn't people reach out to others in a similar position?

They don't need to adopt advice, after all. They might just read it and think about it.

It's also the case that medical advice changes and there are sometimes grey areas. For example, it would once have been thought fanciful that you could reverse prediabetes through dietary changes, but of course that can be done in some cases.

Why should people not discuss those things?

OK but what do you want them to do. As someone said above do you want MNHQ to be googling medical advice or call 111 themselves? How do they know what is correct and what isn’t outside of posts like the diabetes one where the incorrect comments were quite obvious The op should never have posted it was ridiculous to ask that question on here