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.

Most of the legal advice here is a load of rubbish too. I wish people wouldn’t comment unless they really know what they’re talking about.

Sorry? Do you need to Google to find out if peaches cure cancer or not?

I can confidently tell you that no they do not cure cancer. I think the mods should be able to switch their brains on and agree with me on that one.

But that would involve them employing a doctor and would presumably also open them to legal liability since it is more dangerous if people think they can trust the information on here because it has been reviewed.

As it is it is very clear that info is from lay people not experts and you should check with qualified sources. I don’t think that’s a problem?

The poster on the thread we were talking about doubled down repeatedly, presumably to cause a reaction, because nobody can be as thick as to persist in peddling misinformation when everyone else has explained why they are wrong. I think that’s against talk guidelines?

God, don't be so rude, @NoCommentingFromNowOn . There are perfectly good reasons for MNHQ to refuse the role of monitoring and assessing medical info posted on the site. The strongest one being that it would give the impression that posts left standing had passed some sort of basic threshold of accuracy.

Sure, there are some clearly false posts that it would be uncontroversial to zap. But these are the least dangerous precisely because they are such obvious rubbish. And zapping them would mean that the million misleading posts that remained would have more of the aura of truth about them.

And whose word are they meant to take, when deciding whether such-and-such a post is misleading? The word of the posters who complain about the post? They are just randomers too, you know.

In a lot of ways I'm not the greatest fan of mumsnet the company, but my experience of moderation is that it is genuinely well-intentioned and largely sensible. Doesn't seem fair or kind to insult people who are doing their job conscientiously.

Surely the best thing to do if you know that the medical advice a pp has given on a thread is incorrect would be to:

1 Post on the thread challenging the incorrect information and explaining why you think it is incorrect.

2 Post a link to the correct information as per the NHS website or similar, and tagging the OP in that post so they know it is there.

3 report the post to MNHQ if you feel it to be necessary.

People are not idiots for posting for medical help on MN. I’d expect they are absolutely desperate with the shambles of our health service’s lack of accessibility and a lot of the time they want reassurance or signposting. Very often I see posters that have been fobbed off already by a GP or A+E, or discouraged from seeking medical attention by misguided relatives. No one is posting here out of stupidity.

No one is posting here out of stupidity.

No, but it would be stupid to assume that because an anonymous stranger has given 'medical advice', that means it's automatically correct.