{"entity":{"id":"idea-moon-prebunking-at-diagnosis","kind":"idea","name":"Inoculate newly diagnosed patients against common cancer scams","aka":[],"tldr":"In the first weeks after diagnosis, tell patients plainly what kinds of false claims and expensive unproven clinics they will encounter and how to spot them.","summary":"Prebunking (inoculation) is effective in randomised studies for political and health misinformation: explaining manipulation techniques in advance reduces later susceptibility. Newly diagnosed patients are a predictable target of alternative clinics and supplement marketing. The proposal is a short prebunking module (video plus leaflet, delivered by the navigator or nurse) covering the common techniques (testimonials, suppressed-cure narratives, natural-equals-safe, fake experts) and how to raise anything with the team without judgement.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Bottleneck evidence (Misinformation and unproven therapies): Johnson et al., Cancer misinformation and harmful information on Facebook and other social media (JNCI 2022)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djab141"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-misinformation","b-patient-voice"],"keyPapers":["paper-johnson-j-natl-cancer-inst"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Prebunked patients show lower susceptibility to unproven therapy claims at three months and are more likely to disclose supplement and alternative therapy use to their team.","rationale":"Technique-based inoculation generalises across claims, which matters because specific scams change constantly.","test":"Randomised trial at diagnosis in three centres; primary endpoint susceptibility score and disclosure at three months, secondary spending on unproven therapies.","maturity":"early-clinical","actor":"clinic","cost":"small","horizonYears":1},"route":"/ideas/idea-moon-prebunking-at-diagnosis/","neighbours":{"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-misinformation","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Misinformation and unproven therapies","route":"/bottlenecks/b-misinformation/"},{"id":"b-patient-voice","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency","route":"/bottlenecks/b-patient-voice/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-johnson-j-natl-cancer-inst","kind":"paper","name":"Cancer Misinformation and Harmful Information on Facebook and Other Social Media: A Brief Report","route":"/key-papers/paper-johnson-j-natl-cancer-inst/"}],"term":[{"id":"unproven-diet-claims","kind":"term","name":"Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets)","route":"/terms/unproven-diet-claims/"}],"idea":[{"id":"idea-nl-ask-about-diet-prebunking","kind":"idea","name":"Ask about diet at diagnosis, and prebunk the myths before the internet does","route":"/ideas/idea-nl-ask-about-diet-prebunking/"}]}}