Imagine a quiet evening at home. One half of the world is sleeping, but somewhere in Portugal a person lies awake, worried. Maybe they feel a persistent pain, or they notice a strange lump, or their child has a fever that refuses to break. They do what billions of us now do: they pick up their phone and search for answers. The screen glows, and the results pour in. Among the official medical websites and neutral articles, there are also videos and posts that are far more dramatic. A smiling influencer holds up a bottle of herbal drops and promises to cure a disease that doctors supposedly cannot heal. A testimonial from someone who claims they were diagnosed, given up on, and then saved by a homemade remedy. The algorithms keep serving more of the same. It feels real. It feels hopeful. And that is exactly how dangerous misinformation begins its quiet work. In Portugal, the Portuguese Medical Association, known as the Ordem dos Médicos, has decided to fight back. Through its newly established Medical Practice Observatory, created in 2025 specifically to monitor concerns surrounding medical practice, the association has been collecting complaints, hearing stories, and tracking patterns that have now become too serious to ignore. What began as a tool for oversight has revealed a disturbing landscape of misleading health claims, bad advice passing as medical expertise, and a public increasingly caught in the crossfire between real science and sophisticated online charlatanism.
The president of the Portuguese Medical Association, Carlos Cortes, has spoken bluntly about what the Observatory has uncovered. He says that some of the cases are extremely serious, and that misinformation has directly harmed members of the public. These are not abstract concerns. Behind every complaint is a human story. There is the diabetic patient who stopped taking insulin because an online guru insisted that natural herbs alone could control blood sugar. There is the parent who skipped their child’s vaccinations after watching a slick documentary-style video that raised doubts about vaccine safety. There is the cancer patient who delayed chemotherapy to try a miracle supplement recommended by a wellness influencer, only to arrive at the hospital later, weaker, with the disease more advanced. Doctors see these cases every day in clinics and emergency rooms. They see the exhaustion in the eyes of patients who are confused, frightened, desperate for answers, and thoroughly lost in a digital world where anyone can look like an authority. The Medical Association’s concern is not about policing harmless alternative beliefs or limiting free speech. It is about recognizing that misinformation has teeth. It can encourage people to abandon effective treatment, to take unapproved substances, to ignore warning signs, and to place their trust in people who have no medical training and no accountability. The phrase “extremely serious” used by Cortes is not dramatic overstatement. It is a sober summary of what happens when fabricated or distorted health information moves from the fringes of the internet into the mainstream of public life.
The appeal of misinformation is not difficult to understand. Health is emotional. Illness is frightening. People long for certainty, and real medicine often cannot provide that certainty quickly. It requires patience, uncomfortable tests, complicated explanations, and uncertainty. Misinformation, by contrast, offers simple answers. It tells people exactly what to do, promises swift results, and tends to blame a familiar enemy, whether that is the pharmaceutical industry, doctors, or the government. A person with a chronic illness may have struggled for years without a clear diagnosis. Then they find a post that says their symptoms are caused by a hidden toxin, and that a three-week cleanse will flush it out. It sounds plausible. It is shared by thousands. It includes comments from other people saying, “This worked for me.” In that environment, even a trained scientist might pause. For someone who is desperate and exhausted, the appeal is overwhelming. The Portuguese Medical Association understands this dynamic all too well. That is why it has placed social media platforms directly in the spotlight. The association argues that these companies should face penalties in connection with the spread of harmful misinformation. Platforms are not neutral bystanders. Their algorithms reward emotional content, and emotionally charged false claims often outperform careful, nuanced medical advice. A video claiming that a common medicine is a deadly poison will generate outrage, likes, and shares. A physician’s calm explanation of the medicine’s risks and benefits may be seen by only a few people. The result is an information ecosystem in which the loudest and most misleading voices are systematically pushed to the top. People looking for medical advice may encounter claims that appear credible, but have little or no scientific basis. They might feature a man in a white coat, or a woman with a stethoscope, or an impressive list of credentials. The theatrics of authority are easy to fake, and for ordinary patients, telling the difference between a real expert and a well-dressed performer is nearly impossible.
That is why the Medical Association has now submitted a formal legislative proposal to the President of the Republic, Parliament, and the Ministry of Health. The proposal calls for greater oversight of health-related information and practices, and it urges stronger regulation and enforcement to protect patients. This is not a request for gentle guidance or voluntary advertising standards. It is a demand for real legal mechanisms. The association wants authorities to be able to act quickly when dangerous health claims are distributed, and to hold accountable those who create and profit from them. It also wants social media platforms to be treated as responsible actors, not as indifferent conduits. If a platform allows a dangerous false cure for cancer to circulate freely and rise in recommendation algorithms, that platform should not merely issue a vague apology. It should face consequences. The proposal is built on the belief that misleading health information is not just an online nuisance, but a public health threat. It must be treated with the same seriousness as contaminated food, unsafe drugs, or dangerous medical devices. The Medical Association is not asking for the internet to be scrubbed clean of every differing opinion. But it is arguing that when a health claim can lead to serious injury or death, there must be a system of oversight that recognizes the risk and intervenes. This is especially important because the boundary between information and practice has become blurred. An influencer selling an unproven supplement is engaging in a form of medical practice without a license. A podcast host claiming that a homemade remedy can cure chronic disease is making a diagnostic and therapeutic claim. These activities should not be protected merely because they happen on digital platforms instead of in clinics.
For patients, the burden of navigating this landscape is immense. Knowing which information to trust can be difficult, and that difficulty is not a sign of ignorance. It is a structural feature of our modern information age. A concerned mother may search for advice about her child’s rash and find hundreds of different opinions. Some come from pediatricians, others from alternative healers, others from parents who share their personal stories. Each post may look equally polished. Each may be written with confidence. The algorithms do not mark quality. They mark engagement. So an expensive advertisement that looks like a news article may appear higher than the official guidance of a medical association. A celebrity’s testimonial about a weight loss tea may be shared more than a nutritionist’s warning about its questionable ingredients. The patient is left to sort through everything alone, often at a moment of high anxiety. The Portuguese Medical Association believes this is unacceptable. It argues that authorities should take a more active role in addressing the problem, because misleading health information is not something that simply exists around the edges of the internet. It has real consequences for people’s health. It causes people to make decisions that cannot be undone. It delays treatment, increases suffering, drains bank accounts, and in the worst cases, costs lives. Doctors cannot fix this alone. They can counsel one patient at a time, but they cannot out-shout a viral video seen by millions. They need policy makers to act, and they need the public to be supported by systems that make reliable information easier to find and trust. This is not about treating ordinary people as passive helpless victims. It is about recognizing that everyone deserves a fair chance to make informed decisions, and that such decisions require trustworthy sources.
In the end, the fight against medical misinformation is a fight about humanity. It is about the sick and the worried, the parents and the elderly, the vulnerable and the desperate. The Portuguese Medical Association has taken a bold stand, and its message is both a warning and a call to action. If misinformation is allowed to thrive, it will continue to damage health, erode trust in medicine, and drive a wedge between doctors and patients. Stronger regulation and enforcement are necessary, but so too is a deeper shift in how society values truth. We must teach critical thinking in schools, promote health literacy in communities, and hold online spaces accountable for the environment they create. We must also remember that doctors are not enemies of patients. They are partners, healers, and guides. The Medical Association’s legislative proposal is addressed to the President, Parliament, and the Ministry of Health, but really it is addressed to everyone who has ever searched for a health answer in the middle of the night. It is a promise that someone is watching, someone is listening, and someone is willing to challenge the lies that cause so much harm. The road ahead will not be easy. Regulation takes time, platforms resist accountability, and misinformation evolves quickly. But the Observatory has already proved its worth by shining a light on the problem. Now the task is to act. Patients deserve better than a digital wilderness where everything looks possible and nothing is reliable. They deserve a world in which hope is real, guidance is trustworthy, and the advice that reaches them is based not on clicks, but on care. That is the human heart of this entire effort, and it is a cause worth fighting for.