I finally started checking who wrote the study before I share the headline, and it caught 2 fake ones in a row
I used to just read the headline, skim the first paragraph, and hit share if it sounded right. Last month a story about coffee and heart health kept popping up in my feed, so instead of sharing it I clicked through to the actual study and found it was done on 12 mice in a lab in Ohio back in 2019. Then I looked up the site that wrote the article and it was a supplement company's blog with no author name anywhere. I started doing this one thing, scroll to the bottom and find who paid for the research, and it caught a second one a few days later about vitamin D that traced back to a PR firm. Does anyone here have a fast way to check funding sources, or do you just google the lead author and see who signs their paycheck?
Wow, 12 mice in Ohio in 2019 and they turned that into a whole health headline? That is just wild to me. I never even thought to check how OLD the study is either, I always just assume the news is about something recent. The 2019 part really gets me because that was years ago and they are still pushing it like it is brand new. Guess I need to start scrolling to the bottom too and not just trust the first paragraph.