WSJ: Senators Want to Crack Down on Social Media Influencers Touting Drugs and Bogus Health Remedies

Posted on by Devon Herrick
Have you noticed that drug commercials for debilitating diseases often end with healthy people going about their lives after taking the drug. Then, off camera a fast-talking man or woman rushes through a list of hideous potential side effects. The reason for the fast-talking narrator is because the list of major side effects and contraindications are required by law. Now a Senate Committee is up in arms that influencers on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, are touting weight-loss drugs for money but aren’t disclosing side effects.
New bipartisan legislation proposed by Sens. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) and Mike Braun (R., Ind.) would authorize the Food and Drug Administration to warn and potentially impose costly fines on those who post false information online about medicines, or omit important information about a drug’s safety risks.
One impetus for the bill, according to a Senate aide, is the 2024 reporting by The Wall Street Journal about how social media has fueled demand for Ozempic and Wegovy from Novo Nordisk as well as other drugs used for weight loss. The Journal found that posts on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram often omit information about difficult side effects, and that some influencers and companies profit from the posts.
Social media influencers are increasingly another way to advertise products. YouTube is now the most popular streaming service. In terms of hours viewed, it beats out Netflix and Disney+ (and all others). YouTube is also dominated by numerous content creators, as they’re called, who are not necessarily picky about how they earn advertising revenue.
Content creators on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram can tout health information without having a medical degree or credentials of any kind. Some promote false, misleading and even harmful health information.
The bill aims to give the FDA authority to require drugmakers to disclose payments to influencers to the federal Open Payments database, as they currently do with payments to physicians and other health providers.
On the one hand, I never really imagined Grandma sitting at a computer watching YouTube videos that tout the latest treatment for gout, hemorrhoids or bunions. (They’re probably watching cat videos.) Just under 10% of YouTube viewers are age 65 or older. That’s about one-fourth the proportion of those age 25 to 44 watching YouTube, for example. This is changing, however. About 88% of people age 55 and older use YouTube at least once a week.
Exact numbers are hard to come by but there are likely to be thousands of doctors posting content on YouTube. Some of the best-known YouTube doctors have millions of subscribers. Surveys going back 20 years have consistently found that more than 100 million Americans search online for health information annually. Google reports there are roughly 70,000 health related searches every minute. Watching a YouTube video is just another way to get health information over the Internet (for free).
A few months ago, I wrote about how I believe YouTube would be an ideal way to provide interactive group therapy. Let’s hope that in the process of making health information on social media safer and more transparent, Congress does not impede our ability to get health information that way.

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