# Cancer Misinformation and Harmful Information on Facebook and Other Social Media: A Brief Report

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-johnson-j-natl-cancer-inst/  
OnCo record `paper-johnson-j-natl-cancer-inst` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one bottleneck page and 15 idea pages, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 34291289 and published in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute; the citing pages link this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

There are few data on the quality of cancer treatment information available on social media. Here, we quantify the accuracy of cancer treatment information on social media and its potential for harm. Two cancer experts reviewed 50 of the most popular social media articles on each of the 4 most common cancers. The proportion of misinformation and potential for harm were reported for all 200 articles and their association with the number of social media engagements using a 2-sample Wilcoxon rank-sum test. All statistical tests were 2-sided. Of 200 total articles, 32.5% (n = 65) contained misinformation and 30.5% (n = 61) contained harmful information. Among articles containing misinformation, 76.9% (50 of 65) contained harmful information. The median number of engagements for articles with misinformation was greater than factual articles (median [interquartile range] = 2300 [1200-4700] vs 1600 [819-4700], P =.05). The median number of engagements for articles with harmful information was statistically significantly greater than safe articles (median [interquartile range] = 2300 [1400-4700] vs 1500 [810-4700], P =.007).

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 34291289 (DOI 10.1093/jnci/djab141). Matched by DOI alone: one bottleneck page and 15 idea pages cite this DOI among their external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute
- Year: 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djab141
- Authors: Johnson SB, Parsons M, Dorff T, et al.
- What it means: One bottleneck page and 15 idea pages on OnCo cite this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing pages listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- J Natl Cancer Inst 2022: https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djab141
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34291289/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/34291289

## Connected records

- bottlenecks: [Misinformation and unproven therapies](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-misinformation/)
- ideas: [A public benchmark and audit of chatbot answers to cancer questions](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-ai-cancer-answer-audit/), [A public registry of unproven cancer clinics and reported outcomes](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-unproven-clinic-registry/), [A structured pathway for patients declining proven treatment](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-treatment-refusal-pathway/), [An independent hype index grading cancer press releases and news stories](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-hype-index/), [An open supplement-drug interaction checker built into oncology prescribing](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-supplement-interaction-database/), [Ask about diet at diagnosis, and prebunk the myths before the internet does](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-nl-ask-about-diet-prebunking/), [Ban and enforce against paid advertising of unproven cancer treatments](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-ban-unproven-therapy-ads/), [Community-tailored HPV vaccine confidence campaigns with school-based delivery](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-hpv-vaccine-confidence/), [Confirm or refute the harm of antioxidant supplements during chemotherapy](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-nl-antioxidant-supplement-harm-confirmation/), [Evidence-based integrative oncology in every cancer centre to meet demand safely](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-integrative-oncology-bridge/), [Inoculate newly diagnosed patients against common cancer scams](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-prebunking-at-diagnosis/), [Living plain-language evidence summaries for every common cancer question in 20 languages](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-living-plain-evidence-summaries/), [One definitive ketogenic diet trial in glioblastoma, then stop](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-nl-ketogenic-gbm-definitive-trial/), [Train and fund oncology clinicians as public content creators](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-clinician-creator-programme/), [Trained moderators with evidence tools in online patient communities](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-patient-community-moderators/)
- journals: [JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute](https://onco.cc/journals/jnci/)

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