Bad news travels fast. Web news travels fast.
Bad web news travels way too fast.
Tweets are out there and back at you before you can take your next breath. And public opinion sways like seaweed in the shifting tides of digital diarrhea.
There seems no end to it.
I’m sometimes too much of a political news junkie myself. But media frenzies over some public figure’s verbal or photo-op faux-pas are boring, and, well, unhealthy. And medical news stories can create a lot of attention in a hurry and prompt unnecessary speculation or even panic.
Sooo… when you get your latest bit of medical info from your favorite news/website, hold on a bit before you have an anxiety attack or send an alarmed text to your best friend.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about my patients’ doing good research. But from time to time, as I watch medical news, or as some eager and anxious friend calls me about “the deadly new strain of armadillo flu”, I’ll be posting Webagoguery Alerts.