Health mis- and dis-information is seemingly everywhere. More than 6 in 10 physicians reported their patients were influenced by misinformation and/or disinformation at least a moderate amount over the past year, according to a survey by The Physicians Foundation.
And the impacts on people’s health decisions are real. More than half of adults use social media to get health and wellness information at least occasionally, and those numbers increase for young adults, Black and Latino adults, and parents of young children, according to KFF. More than half of social media users reported the health content they’ve consumed influenced their behaviour or try something new. More than a third have shared health content from social media with friends or family.
Increasingly, studies over the past few years are finding that health misinformation is linked to profits – and that there are financial incentives to peddle and promote false health information to the public for both creators and the platforms they share content on. The findings reinforce a major misinformation red flag: if you’re being sold something alongside health or wellness messaging, it’s a sign to take a step back and consider the information you’re being given.
A 2024 study demonstrated how online misinformation is largely financially sustained via advertising, even when some companies don’t realize their ads are being shown on websites or in content that spreads misinformation.
In 2025, a journal article, “Social media and the spread of misinformation: infection and a threat to public health,” in Health Promotion International laid out the cycle like this:
Influencers can make more money by creating content that generates higher views and engagement, and misinformation is linked to greater views and engagement, particularly when it is novel. There is a risk, therefore, that creators may be financially rewarded for posting health misinformation. Simultaneously, platforms make greater profits from users spending more time on social media through advertising revenue and generating more user data, which is sold. Platforms leverage algorithms to keep people online for longer and continue to deliver misinformation to users who are likely to engage with it. Furthermore, misinformation in and of itself can generate revenue because people spend time viewing it. This phenomenon has been evident in relation to COVID-19 and vaccination, whereby influencers leveraged vaccine and other health misinformation to profit from engagement and product sales; meanwhile, social media giants profited from people spending time viewing COVID-19 misinformation. The situation in which both the creator and platform are financially incentivized to publish misinformation is a vicious cycle that allows misinformation to flourish.
A 2025 study that looked at 200 highly-viewed posts on Instagram and TikTok about attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), found that the majority – 84.5% – of the posts were made by individuals selling ADHD-related products.
Another 2025 study on misinformation posts about Hepatitis B on Instagram found that Hepatitis B misinformation had more engagement than accurate information on the platform and was more likely to be for-profit than accurate information. Significantly more misinformation posts – 39.5% – were for-profit compared to accurate posts, where only 13.8 percent were for profit.
A 2024 study from the University of Washington looked at six months’ worth of posts of three creators on Instagram who spread vaccine misinformation.
“Misinformation is an immensely profitable endeavor,” the study’s authors wrote. “Amplifiers of misinformation have found routes to monetize their digital content by using it to direct their online followers to purchase the products and services they endorse. Far-right news and opinion site Infowars, for instance, made $165 million between 2015 and 2018, selling health supplements and merchandise through the Infowars store (Vaillancourt, 2022) advertised during Alex Jones’ talk radio shows, often attached to misinformation narratives or in the context of discussing conspiracy theories (Locker, 2017).”
The study categorized the three creators into three archetypes: the Conspiratorial Fashionista, the Wellness Homesteader and the Evangelical Mother. It laid out how these three creators went from building their audiences with antivaccination content to profiting from selling products to these audiences.
The products advertised and recommended by each of the influencers included heavy metal detox spray, “clean” cosmetics, essential oils, air and water filtration products, vitamins and supplements, apparel, homeschooling resources, fitness products, “off-grid” supplies like solar panels and generators, EMF blocking products, organic/nontoxic food, skincare products and home decor.
The pathway, the researchers found, looked something like this: The creators build and maintain their audience through lifestyle and wellness content that includes anti-vaccine content. Their content also includes advertising alternative wellness products, like essential oils and vitamin supplements as more “natural” ways to remedy diseases.
The accounts leveraged anti-vaccination messaging to cultivate an audience to which they sold things, either directly through their own storefront or products or through getting a percentage of items they recommended. Sometimes these were health-related products, such as a supplement that they claimed could work as an alternative to a vaccine, and sometimes they utilized the community they built to sell other things, such as clothing.
The study’s authors concluded that their findings show how parasocial relationships play an important role in the spread of misinformation, but also how the normalization of being able to monetize content allows people to financially benefit from spreading vaccine misinformation.
If you’re concerned about health misinformation on your feed, Dr. Kristen Panthagani has outlined five things, including product sales, to look out for in content that should make you dig deeper:
- “Don’t trust doctors, trust me!”: Why are they more trustworthy than a doctor?
- “Doctors don’t want you to know this.”: Doctors actually do want you to know how to keep yourself healthy!
- “This will be the fix!”: Especially when used for complicated issues like fatigue, anxiety or weight gain.
- Sciency marketing jargon: Keep an eye out for hot terms like “inflammation,” “all natural,” “antioxidants,” “balancing hormones,” “detox,” “boosting your immunity” and “gut health.”
- Something is for sale: Keep an eye out for being sold things like supplements, detoxes or weight loss products alongside health and wellness messaging.