Health Check How impostors distort medical research
Oct 22, 2025
Join Ayan Panja, a family doctor; Eileen Morrow, a doctoral research fellow at Oxford; and Kasum Kayantayo, an epidemiologist from Bamako, as they dive into pressing health topics. They discuss Japan's flu surge and its implications for the Northern Hemisphere, the rising issue of human and bot imposters in medical research, and the challenges of recruiting pregnant women for malaria trials in West Africa. Plus, learn about a new needle-free nasal adrenaline spray and the surprising metabolic limits of endurance athletes.
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Online Studies At Risk Of Widespread Fakes
- Online health studies unlock huge reach but also invite falsified participants and bots at scale.
- Eileen Morrow warns this can seriously distort results and downstream policy decisions.
Surgeon Caller Turned Out To Be A Fake
- Eileen Morrow described a caller who claimed to be a surgeon but panicked when asked for a GMC number and re-signed as a child patient.
- That pattern revealed people deliberately lying to join her study.
Treat Motives As Multifaceted When Screening
- Avoid assuming financial incentives alone cause imposters; consider boredom, curiosity, or targeted disruption as motives.
- Balance checks carefully to not wrongly exclude genuine, atypical participants.