When “Health Education” Becomes Disinformation

Walk through almost any busy market, lorry station or roadside commercial area and you may hear a familiar sound: a loudspeaker confidently delivering what sounds like health education.

The voice is persuasive. It speaks with certainty. It uses medical terminology. It tells people about diseases, symptoms and complications and, before long, introduces a herbal product that supposedly offers the solution.

At first glance, it may sound like a public health service. But sometimes, it is something else entirely: marketing disguised as health education. Recently, a public-address broadcast associated with a herbal product reportedly claimed that untreated chronic gonorrhoea can “transform into” syphilis. It cannot.

Gonorrhoea and syphilis are two different sexually transmitted infections caused by two different bacteria. Neisseria gonorrhoeae causes gonorrhoea, while Treponema pallidum causes syphilis. Gonorrhoea does not turn into syphilis.

A person can, however,have both infections at the same time because they share routes of transmission. That is called co-infection, not transformation. This may appear to be a simple medical mistake. But when such a claim is broadcast loudly in a public place, in the voice of someone presenting themselves as a health educator, it becomes much more than an innocent error. It becomes a public health concern.

When Fear Becomes a Sales Strategy
Imagine someone standing at a busy market after a long day of work. They hear a loudspeaker warning that an untreated infection can develop into another serious disease. They may not have the medical knowledge to question the claim.

Then comes the solution: “Take this herbal preparation.” That sequence is fear, uncertainty and then a product presented as the answer can be extremely powerful. Health education should help people understand their health and make informed decisions. It should not frighten people into purchasing a product. The problem is not herbal medicine itself. Traditional and herbal medicine have an important place in many communities, and many practitioners serve people responsibly. The problem arises when unverified biomedical claims are used to sell products.

The Real Danger Is What Happens Next
Misinformation about sexually transmitted infections can have consequences far beyond misunderstanding a medical term.

A person who believes that a herbal preparation can cure an infection may delay appropriate testing or treatment. During that period, the infection may continue to cause harm and may be transmitted to others.

Untreated gonorrhoea can cause serious complications, including pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility and, in some cases, infection that spreads beyond the genital tract. Syphilis is also a serious infection. Without appropriate treatment, it can progress and eventually affect organs including the cardiovascular and nervous systems.

The important point is simple: both conditions require accurate diagnosis and appropriate medical management. A loudspeaker should never become a substitute for a laboratory test, a qualified health professional or evidence-based treatment.

The Problem With Borrowed Authority
Perhaps the most troubling part of this phenomenon is not merely that false information is being shared. It is how the information is presented. A person listening to a public-address system in a market may reasonably assume that what they are hearing has been checked by someone with appropriate expertise.

The language sounds official.
The voice sounds confident.
The message sounds educational.
But confidence is not evidence.
A public health message should be based on established scientific knowledge and communicated responsibly. When commercial interests are hidden behind the language of health education, the public may have difficulty distinguishing genuine health advice from advertising. That is where the danger lies.

The People Most at Risk May Be Those With the Fewest Choices

This issue also has a social dimension. Many people who encounter these messages may have limited access to healthcare, face financial constraints, live far from health facilities or simply lack the time and resources to verify what they have heard. For such a person, the loudspeaker may be the most accessible source of health information available at that moment.

If the information is wrong, the consequences can be serious. We should therefore be especially careful about health claims delivered in places where people are vulnerable, busy or unlikely to challenge the information being presented.

Closing the Regulatory Gap
This raises an important question for regulators: Should a person be allowed to make a medical claim through a loudspeaker in a public place that would not be permitted in a regulated product advertisement? If the answer is no, then our regulatory approach needs to catch up with the way health products are actually being marketed.

Advertising and health-claims regulation should not focus only on television, radio, newspapers, social media and product labels. It should also consider informal and community-level marketing ncluding market stalls, roadside shops, lorry stations, mobile public-address systems and other spaces where health claims are made directly to the public.

A claim about the cause, progression, prevention or treatment of a disease should meet the same basic standard of evidence regardless of whether it appears on a billboard, a social media page or comes through a loudspeaker. The medium should not determine the standard of truth.

What Can Be Done?
A sensible response does not require the blanket criminalization of herbal medicine or traditional healthcare. Instead, Ghana can pursue a balanced approach based on regulation, accountability and education.

First, health-related claims made in public advertising should be subject to clear standards. If a claim cannot be scientifically substantiated, it should not be used to market a health product.

Second, regulatory agencies and local authorities should pay greater attention to informal advertising environments. Enforcement should not stop at registered facilities and formal media.

Third, the public should have simple ways to report misleading health claimsthr ough a hotline, SMS platform or other accessible reporting mechanism.

Fourth, public health authorities should consider taking accurate health information directly into the same spaces where misinformation is being distributed. Markets, transport terminals and community centres can become places not only for commercial advertising, but also for trusted public health education.

Finally, we must invest in health literacy. People should be taught to recognise warning signs of questionable health marketing. One useful rule is this: Whenever a health message creates fear and immediately presents a product as the solution, pause and ask questions.

Protecting Traditional Medicine Without Protecting Misinformation There is an important distinction that must not be lost. This is not an argument against herbal medicine.

It is not an attack on traditional healers. It is not an argument that every herbal product is ineffective. It is an argument for truthfulness and accountability in health communication. A responsible herbal practitioner should have nothing to fear from a system that demands honesty about what a product can and cannot do. Regulation should protect responsible practitioners while preventing unsupported claims from exploiting the public.

The Loudest Voice Should Not Become the Most Trusted Voice

At the heart of this debate is something very human: trust. When people are sick, they are often frightened. They want answers. They want reassurance. They want something that will make them better. That vulnerability deserves respect.

Health education should give people knowledge, not fear. It should encourage testing, early diagnosis and appropriate treatment not delay them. And it should never use scientific-sounding language simply to make a commercial product appear more credible. The answer is not to silence legitimate traditional medicine. The answer is to ensure that every health claim made to the public whether from a clinic, pharmacy, television station, social media page or market loudspeaker is held to an appropriate standard of truth and evidence.

A loudspeaker can educate a community. But when it broadcasts medical misinformation for commercial gain, it can also put that community at risk. Genuine health education empowers people to make informed choices. Predatory health marketing exploits uncertainty. The difference matters and regulators, health professionals and society must make sure that the loudest voice is not mistaken for the most trustworthy one.

By: Dr. Solomon D.Y. Kwashie, Medical Laboratory Scientist

   Comments0