False or misleading health information on social media, apps, and AI tools risks damaging the life-chances of children in the UK, LSHTM experts say
Experts at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) are worried about a surge of harmful health information on topics such as vaccines, reproductive health, disease outbreaks, and climate and health. This coincides with people increasingly turning to influencers, unverified 'wellness' apps and AI chatbots for health advice that can be misleading, inaccurate, or even dangerous.
They warn misinformation (false or misleading information) that persuades people to avoid childhood vaccinations or take unproven treatments, and AI chatbots that 'hallucinate' clinical details, not only puts individual lives at risk but will lead to a sicker, less productive, UK population.
At the Health Misinformation UNPACKED event (15 September 2025) in London, LSHTM experts launched a call for universities, health organisations, charities, and funders to join a new network aimed at fighting dangerous health misinformation in the UK.
Speaking following the event Professor Liam Smeeth, Director of LSHTM, said:
"People used to ask their GP or check the NHS website to find out about symptoms or treatments. But as more people turn away from these trustworthy sources of health information towards social media and AI they are at risk from health misinformers and platforms with their own agenda, often commercial or political. These provide advice without any medical training or oversight, and no accountability if things go wrong.
"This isn't just about choices people make for themselves: it's about choices about vaccination that impact babies while they are still in the womb, or decisions on climate policy that increase risks from extreme heat and mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya. Without tackling inaccurate or misleading health information we risk turning the clocks back and reversing decades of progress and the many benefits routine vaccination has brought in preventing diseases.
"We cannot fight health misinformation alone but we believe, with the World Economic Forum and the UN recently ranking dis/misinformation as one of the top global risks, organisations are starting to wake up to the threat. That's why at LSHTM we are calling for this network to bring together all those with an interest in public health to act before it's too late."
Speaking following the event, Professor Adam Kucharski, Co-Director of the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response (CEPR), said:
"Today ideas spread faster than pathogens, often undermining front-line countermeasures against outbreaks of disease, so we cannot afford to treat harmful information as a secondary threat.
"Belief in outright falsehoods is not the only challenge, we also have to find a way to address technically-true-but-potentially-misleading content, which can have a larger aggregate impact on social media.
"We have to learn lessons from both the COVID-19 pandemic and what's happening in the US and get better at acknowledging and communicating uncertainties or risk a 'lost generation' that don't know where to turn for trustworthy health advice. It's not enough for health experts and institutions to say 'trust us', we have to work to rebuild that trust by providing people with accessible high-quality health information that reflects their concerns and answers their questions."
In preparing for the next infodemic Britain could look to countries such as Finland, which have a national media literacy programme that involves teaching children and adults how to identify and resist misinformation.
In July 2025 parliament's Communications and Digital Committee published a media literacy report recommending that media literacy should be embedded in the national curriculum. According to LSHTM experts a key consideration would be how to support teachers to have discussions on these difficult and complex topics in the classroom.
There is currently no coordinated approach to monitoring dangerous health misinformation circulating in the UK. One of the aims of the proposed new network would be to monitor for health misinformation attacks on key topics and collaborate on social media and online interventions that could counter them.
