Healthline: The big business of medical misinformation
UC’s Jeffrey Blevins, featured as expert on social media and COVID-19 misinformation
The spread of medical misinformation is not a new social issue. Peddlers were selling snake oil long before our time. Modern media, however, has given rise to an invisible traveling salesman and medical misinformation gets peddled faster now at 5G.
Researcher Jeffrey Blevins, head of UC’s Department of Journalism, studies misinformation on social media platforms and was featured in a Healthline article that looks at how medical misinformation spreads.
“We really have a knowledge crisis in this country,” Blevins states in the article, referring to the early days of the pandemic and how medication falsehoods were taken as truths. The Healthline article points to recent research led by Blevins that focused on whose voices were the strongest in promoting the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.
Featured image at top of Jeffrey Blevins. Photo/Colleen Kelly/UC Creative + Brand.
Impact Lives Here
The University of Cincinnati is leading public urban universities into a new era of innovation and impact. Our faculty, staff and students are saving lives, changing outcomes and bending the future in our city's direction. Next Lives Here.
Related Stories
Sugar overload killing hearts
November 10, 2025
Two in five people will be told they have diabetes during their lifetime. And people who have diabetes are twice as likely to develop heart disease. One of the deadliest dangers? Diabetic cardiomyopathy. But groundbreaking University of Cincinnati research hopes to stop and even reverse the damage before it’s too late.
Is going nuclear the solution to Ohio’s energy costs?
November 10, 2025
The Ohio Capital Journal recently reported that as energy prices continue to climb, economists are weighing the benefits of going nuclear to curb costs. The publication dove into a Scioto Analysis survey of 18 economists to weigh the pros and cons of nuclear energy. One economist featured was Iryna Topolyan, PhD, professor of economics at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business.
App turns smartwatch into detector of structural heart disease
November 10, 2025
An app that uses an AI model to read a single-lead ECG from a smartwatch can detect structural heart disease, researchers reported at the 2025 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association. Although the technology requires further validation, researchers said it could help improve the identification of patients with heart failure, valvular conditions and left ventricular hypertrophy before they become symptomatic, which could improve the prognosis for people with these conditions.