Hosted by Pinoy science journalist Mikael Angelo Francisco, the Ask Theory Podcast shines the spotlight on science in and for the Philippines. From fascinating stories of Filipino scientists to urgent science-related issues that require serious attention, Ask Theory emphasizes the undeniable connections between science and society – and the importance of staying curious.
Dr. Adam Smith, more popularly known as Doc Adam, is a British-Australian medical doctor and social media content creator who debunks medical misinformation and discusses medical-related problems that are relevant to Filipinos. In 2025, he published a book called “Quacks,” detailing what he calls his “journey through Filipino health scams.”
Listen to Ask Theory Episode 161 here:
Listen to Ask Theory Episode 162 here:
Here’s the full transcript of my interview with Doc Adam.
Part 1 – Why are there so many health scams in the Philippines?
MIKAEL: I have with me Dr. Adam Smith. He is, of course, Doc Adam. You know him on social media, he has a YouTube channel where he debunks medical misinformation and generally talks about different medical-related problems that are relevant to Filipinos. He also recently came out with a book called “Quacks,” and we’ll be talking about that, but before anything else, Doc Adam, good day and thanks for joining me here today.
DOC ADAM: All good. How is it in Manila? Are you in Manila?
MIKAEL: Yes, it is very hot.
DOC ADAM: Oh, is it? It’s very hot here as well, but I’m in Queensland. It’s been raining for about three months solid. We’ve got floods everywhere. It’s crazy.
MIKAEL: Speaking of hot topics, I think the hottest topic we can talk about right now is your book. But before we start talking about your book, I’d like to talk about you. Just for people who have been following your work or maybe aren’t that familiar with you, can you give us a quick rundown of who you are and why you’ve decided to do exactly what it is you’re doing right now?
DOC ADAM: So, I mean, a few years ago, I used to have a YouTube channel in the Philippines where I debunked a lot of health misinformation, different health scams going on in the country, which I was seeing on Facebook or social media as a whole. There’s an awful lot of scams in the country and a lot of people being affected by these scams. And the way they’re affected can range from just simply falling for some kind of dodgy weight loss coffee or some kind of supplement that they believe is somehow helping them, all the way through to people falling for cancer scams and trying to treat their cancer with multivitamins or some kind of food or diet. They’re very widespread in the Philippines.
So a couple of years ago, I was debunking this kind of stuff on YouTube. And the way I came about doing that was… I was in the Philippines ten years ago, travelling. I was on the way back from Australia to England, and I dropped by to see one of my friends, school friends, who’s called Andrew Wolfe, who used to be a celebrity ten years ago, back in the Philippines. He’s a half Filipino, very good-looking guy, who used to do a lot of modeling in the Philippines.
I came to see him for a week on my way back to the UK. We had a good time partying and going out and we went to Boracay and stuff. And when I was there seeing Wolfe, I met my girlfriend. We started dating, travelled around the world a bit, and eventually ended up in Australia. When we were in Australia, I was speaking, we spoke Tagalog, we spoke both languages in the house, so I spoke, so she taught me Tagalog, so we used to be bilingual in the house, and she… She suggested we do a YouTube channel and start doing some health advice online. So we did that.
And after a while, I realized there was a significant amount of advice which was wrong and misleading and potentially dangerous. And I started debunking some of that advice in Tagalog. So that happened about four or five years ago. I did it for a couple of years, and then I left, I took a couple of years off but… that’s basically my story.
MIKAEL: When I was reading your book, I was like, “Yeah, I can totally relate with Doc Adam’s struggles.” I have encountered people who communicate like this, who are not very receptive to being corrected whether they’re the ones peddling misinformation or the ones believing it. But that got me thinking. You mentioned that you noticed that there’s a lot of medical misinformation in the philippines. Now, realistically, medical misinformation is a problem everywhere in the world. We know that. But I just want to get a quick glimpse of… How is the medical misinformation problem in Australia compared to the Philippines? In terms of misinformation, what kinds of medical misinformation? Because here in the Philippines, you mentioned, for example, people mistakenly buy supplements that are advertised to cure medical conditions. Is that problem as widespread in Australia or is it about some other aspects of medical health that you have a problem with? And is the problem as severe there as it is here in the Philippines?
DOC ADAM: No, it’s not severe here. There’s definitely medical misinformation worldwide. I mean, even in the US, you can see what’s been happening recently since Trump’s come into power. There’s a lot of misinformation going around, and it’s definitely a widespread problem.
Medical misinformation is much more significant in the Philippines than anywhere else I’ve seen, especially compared to Australia. If we look at Australia, then when I’m at work, I definitely have a few people asking me questions, a few people who are refusing to, for example, vaccinate. Like the other day, I had a mom and daughter and the daughter wasn’t vaccinated. There are a few people in that, I guess, that headspace here, but it’s nothing compared to what I’ve seen in the Philippines.
And I think maybe one of the significant reasons why… I mean, there’s many reasons why it’s worse in the Philippines than it is, for example, in Australia. If I had to summarize them or state some of the reasons I believe it’s worse in the Philippines… Firstly, in the Philippines, access to Western medicine isn’t as available. In Australia, people can see a doctor quite easily. Most of the time, it’s free to see a doctor. There might be a small charge, but it’s pretty accessible. If you want to come and see me at the emergency department, you can just pop in and see me at the emergency department. You don’t go pay for it. While if you’re in the Philippines, you go pay a lot of money often, to do that. There [are] some health clinics, but as a whole, health costs in the Philippines. And I think that that leads to a barrier to entry to Western medicine that doesn’t exist to the same level here.
I think another reason it’s so widespread in the Philippines is I don’t think the government authorities are significantly controlling the problem. If, for example, here I set up some scam company selling scammy vitamins and I was promoting them online, then very, very, very quickly the TGA, which is the equivalent of the FDA, would shut me down, fine me, take me through the courts, and give me some serious pain. I could also potentially have the victims who I was selling the scams to try to sue me. They could sue me for fraud, for misleading advice, et cetera, et cetera. So I’d end up just financially destroyed if I tried to sell a scam vitamin here. While in the Philippines, I don’t think the FDA is effectively controlling a lot of these problems or these scams.
And furthermore, when people are scammed in the Philippines, they often don’t have the money to then go after the company who scammed them. And they don’t want to go through the legal process there because if you go through the legal process in the Philippines, it can take five, ten years to go through the courts and you often get nothing at the end. So people are reluctant to use the courts to try and get justice in the Philippines.
So I think they’re probably two of the significant reasons why I think it’s much worse in the Philippines. It’s the lack of government control of the problem and lack of access to Western medicine.
MIKAEL: Yeah, I find myself agreeing with you.and those are really sound observations. But you mentioned the lack of… I suppose, a stronger government presence or actually enforcing… As you mentioned in your book, we do have certain laws in place. Some are lacking. Some are surprisingly thorough. Like, for example, in terms of what has to be on the label of supplements that are definitely not medicine. So… And this was a bit heartbreaking for me. Every time I’d finish a chapter, and you’d be like, at the end of the chapter, “I reached out to so-and-so, but as of the publication of this book, they did not get back to me. They did not respond to me.” So that was, for me, like a recurring theme in your book. You’d mention these things that you noticed, you point out, and you try to reach out to the people, whether they’re celebrities or a government institution, and you receive no response. What are your thoughts on that?
DOC ADAM: Well, in Australia, when we’re doing journalism or discussing somebody in the news, then we always reach out for the comment for their side of things before we publish. So for example, I was saying such and such was a scammer selling a scam product. Then I’d always reach out to them to find out why they believe it’s okay to sell that scam product or whether or not they believe it’s a scam product. So that’s, like, standard process to all journalism worldwide.
In the Philippines, that does not seem to be standard process, and I’m not too sure why. And to be honest, I have… had multiple articles written about me in the past, and I’ve only ever had one person reach out to me to ask my opinion on the article. And that was after the copper mask article, and the person who… Just to explain, copper mask was a mask which was sold through the pandemic in the Philippines, and it was laced with some kind of copper. But the problem with the mask was [that] it had a big hole in the front. So I made a video about this company, and they threatened me with a libel case, which was ultimately dropped. But throughout this process, Vice News, which is a news channel in Asia, reached out because they were doing an article on the mask, and they reached out for comment.
But that’s the only time I think anybody’s ever reached out for comment from me in the Philippines. I’ve had articles written by GMA, Philstar, et cetera, et cetera, and they’ve never reached out to [me to] comment, from my memory. It’s a weird, weird thing that they don’t do that. I don’t know why, but..
So, yeah, so I asked all these celebrities, companies, et cetera for comment when I was writing my book so I was doing my duty as a journalist, but they never responded, the majority… Even the FDA never responded, I don’t think.
I think the only people to respond was the, who was it? Was it the medical board? I think maybe the medical board responded, the PRC. But most people, I don’t think, even responded. Oh, no, maybe there was a restaurant owner that responded as well. Once.
MIKAEL: And you also published the response that you got [from the medical board], the email response that you got, and it seemed like a standard boilerplate response that didn’t really answer much.
DOC ADAM: Didn’t answer my questions, no.
MIKAEL: Yeah, it did not.
DOC ADAM: Which is sad, really, because I talk about these problems because I feel they’re genuine problems that are affecting people in the country that could be fixed with small changes. And the people I was reaching out for comment from just don’t seem receptive at all to listening. It’s pretty tragic and sad, but hey, what can I do apart from reach out for comment?
MIKAEL: Yeah, I totally get you. And it is unfortunate that that’s been your experience because here in the Philippines, we are obviously taught, as with any good journalist, we know the importance of reaching out, getting, not really being impartial because journalism should be biased towards the truth, but talking to who you need to talk to before you put anything out. It’s basic. It’s the bare minimum of fact-checking. So it’s really unfortunate that you had that experience with the journalists who’ve covered your story so far. I think your book is a really valuable resource. I mentioned that I finished it.
DOC ADAM: Thanks.
MIKAEL: It’s really thorough. And one of the things I really liked about the book was at the end, you have “The Quack Playbook.” Things that quacks say to sort of like get, to convince people that they really, that what they’re peddling is something that they have to buy, like “I only really care about you and this is why I’m trying to sell you this medicine” or “Big Pharma wants to hide this from you because they want to make money,” et cetera, et cetera. It’s great that you were able to give that, to observe all of that.
But for example, I’m an ordinary Filipino with maybe average literacy when it comes to health information. I’m not a doctor, not a scientist. I just know the basics. If I’m feeling sick, see a doctor. Doctors are expensive, et cetera, et cetera. I’m an ordinary Filipino. How would I go about being able to determine whether someone trying to sell me medication is a quack or not? What are some of the signs that I, as an ordinary Filipino with no experience in debunking or no science background, what are some of the things I should be observant about? Or what are some of the questions I should ask before I actually buy any of these supplements?
DOC ADAM: I mean, there’s many things and it’s a bit of pattern recognition, really. And once you see one, you can normally spot another one. I think probably the most important thing that doesn’t exist in a lot of Filipinos — without wanting to generalize — but it doesn’t exist a lot of the time, is skepticism. I think it’s so important to be skeptical especially when it comes to your health and things you’re seeing online. Something is… You need to assume something is stupid until they’ve proven adequately that it isn’t stupid. Something is a bad idea till you prove it isn’t a bad idea, especially in health.
Like if somebody turns up and they’re telling you that ginger can treat cancer… I mean this is a bad idea until it’s proven that it’s not a bad idea. And when we talk about proof, we need something more than just their facebook page and just a testimonial video that they’ve produced. That’s not adequate evidence that something works because… skepticism is so important. You have to be finding out that information from multiple sources, just not from one source on Facebook where they’re sharing it and they’re set to profit from the sale, from sharing the advice. So that would be my first bit of advice: Be skeptical of anything regarding your health. And the more serious the health problem, the more skeptical you need to be. if for example you’re just buying a multivitamin because you just want a bit of a multivitamin in your life for whatever reason — even though most don’t do anything — if you’re buying that, you probably don’t need to be overly skeptical.
If you’ve got cancer and you’re looking for a treatment and there’s something for sale for Php 2,000 online, I would be extremely skeptical and I’d be very questioning of that and I’d be looking for multiple sources to prove that that thing works. It’s all about turning on what I call would be your bullshit meter. You need to assume everything’s bullshit until it’s proven not to be bullshit. And that’s the most important thing with health. And I don’t think many people do that. They are very quick to believe anything and assume anything is true in the Philippines. And that’s one of the reasons it results in so many people becoming scammed.
Yeah, there is obviously a big long list of things you can look for, which I’ve written about in my book. But off the top of my head, if I had to summarise, it would be, be skeptical and look for multiple sources. And if something sounds like it’s too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true.
MIKAEL: So my next few questions will be coming from me as a science communicator. Because I really think, I even mentioned that your book is a valuable resource for debunking quacks and talking about what you experienced in doing so. But also, I think that science journalists and science communicators can benefit from reading your book because of the very specific encounters that you’ve had.
So I think my first question, something I’m really curious about is, I’ve noticed that people, especially non-scientists, when they ask you something, and as anyone will tell you, science isn’t absolute truth. It’s based on the strongest possible evidence at the time. So when people tend to ask simple things or overly simplified things like, “Is bacon really bad for you?” or “Are eggs good for you?” Some people will say “Yes, because this study from 1999 says so,” and then some people will say, “but the study from 2010 says otherwise,” and then they’ll fight. And ultimately, it derides the confidence of people in science. But how do you handle answering questions like that that don’t have a simple, straightforward, or direct answer?
DOC ADAM: Yeah, people want simple answers for complex questions all the time. That’s what they search for in health and that’s what people desire. I mean, I get it all the time at work, it doesn’t just apply to quackery, it applies to… to everything. How do you approach it? Well, that’s a million-dollar question, I think. When somebody’s turning up and saying that they can treat their cancer with a tomato, then how do you approach that and explain you can’t, and talk about the pros and cons of the tomato in an interesting way? I mean, it’s very hard to do. I mean, all you can do is give people the information, but I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that.
MIKAEL: I found it funny that you mentioned the tomato because I remember the part in your book that specifically talks about that. “If tomatoes could really cure cancer, then why is it that people who have been eating tomatoes all their lives, why do they still get…” I think, specifically lung cancer, something like that.
DOC ADAM: I mean, that’s the skepticism you need to apply, right?
MIKAEL: Yeah, that was funny.
DOC ADAM: You know, if tomatoes treat cancer, then does that mean I’m treating my cancer when I eat a pizza? I mean, you just need that one question to realize that it’s nonsense. But people don’t ask that question. They just assume tomatoes treat cancer. You need to spend your life in medicine and health assuming something is nonsense until they can adequately prove it isn’t. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. Right.
MIKAEL: Yeah, I agree. You’ve talked to, you’ve debunked medical misinformation, but also you’ve spoken to people who peddle medical misinformation. And as a science communicator, that’s really interesting to me because sometimes you have to tread a very careful line wherein you want to present evidence but you also don’t want to get sued you don’t want to get in trouble. So what’s your advice to science communicators who might encounter similar situations? Like, how do you, for example… How do you figure out what to say directly and what not to say so that you cannot be sued or threatened with legal action?
DOC ADAM: So, in the Philippines, well, I mean… the first thing to say is anybody can sue anybody at any time if they want to and they’ve got the money to, so if you annoy the wrong person they will sue you. If you’re making videos or you’re making content debunking people, you always need to bear that in mind.
I mean, one way to reduce the chance of that happening is reaching out for comment from the individual so they know you’re doing the video and they can put their side in. But if they don’t respond, then, and you want to make the video, I think the first thing to do is to make sure that your video is clearly opinion-based and it’s you giving your opinion, and that opinion is based on facts.
Opinion… I’m not a lawyer in the Philippines, although I’m aware of the law quite in-depth in Australia, but I think opinions is part of a defense in the Philippines in a libel case, so if you can make your video opinion-based, that would help you out a lot. And base that opinion on facts. That would be my basic advice and reach out for comment if you can from the individual.
You also need to avoid the ad hominem attacks or any joking about the individual. Just stick to the facts and your opinion. That’s probably the best way of avoiding any kind of legal issues in the Philippines.But I’m not a Filipino lawyer. (laughs) Don’t take my advice one hundred percent.
Part 2 – Can we really change people’s minds about health scams?
MIKAEL: From your experiences, what has been the most effective way to talk to, for example, a vaccine skeptic? Because you mentioned… insulting them doesn’t work for obvious reasons. When you’re trying to change people’s minds, generally, you don’t antagonize them. But from your experience, what has been your most persuasive tool in talking to people who may have been misled or misinformed about medicine? How do you persuade people who are misinformed to take your medical advice or to at least, at the very least, not believe the people who are peddling misinformation?
DOC ADAM: That’s very hard to do. I could spend three hours with somebody who’s been misinformed and not be able to change their mind. I think a lot of people need to find out for themselves that they’re being misinformed, tragically. That’s why so many people die from these scams, et cetera, because they don’t realize they’ve been misinformed ‘til it’s too late and their cancer’s advanced. It’s only then that they realise that they’ve believed nonsense at the very last days of their life.
So, you know, somebody might, for example, have a, any kind of cancer, they might be treating it with some kind of herbal natural therapy and that might be getting worse and they might be seeing it get worse, they might be losing weight, the cancer might be growing, and that can go on for months before, and they’ll still not realize that they’re being scammed or they’re treating their medical illness incorrectly. Even though they’re living with a deteriorating illness for several months, they won’t realize that they’re believing in misinformation. So there’s nothing I can say in an hour of conversation to make them realize that they’re being misled. A lot of people just need to find out for themselves, sadly. That’s just how it is. I mean, family members can spend months and years trying to convince their other family members to not fall for these scams. They can’t do it. Once people are down that pathway, it’s very hard to educate them otherwise, sadly. Sorry.
MIKAEL: No, it’s okay. There are a lot of examples in your book, and that’s why I understand. My next question will be more on the reactions of people. Not just to your book, but to your content in general. In your book, you made it clear early on that there’s this thing called the white savior complex. When you swoop in, a white person who is not from the Philippines swoops in and gives his take on some pressing issues and everyone reacts or people react to it like, you’re not, or as we say, “Hindi ka taga-rito. You’re not from here. Mind your own business,” et cetera. And I imagine you’ve probably gotten a lot of reactions like that from people who consume your content or maybe stumbled upon your content. So how do you deal with… how do you answer that? Do you just not answer? How do you handle that kind of reaction? And does that affect, do you think that affects your credibility in some way or it doesn’t?
DOC ADAM: Yeah, I think a lot of that reaction is quite based on a lot of racism a lot of the time, isn’t it? Like to bring race into something. It’s quite an interesting reaction that I get a lot. I think with regards to the white savior complex, that’s always been a concern of mine. I don’t want to present myself as some white guy swooping in and trying to save the country because that’s definitely not what I am, and not what I want to do. What I want to do is just state the facts about what’s happening and hope other people pick up the baton and try and make some changes. It’s not my job to make changes. It’s just my job to present what I’ve seen and present the facts. So I never want to come across as some kind of savior. And I’m very, very, very conscious to not present myself in that manner at every opportunity. I’ve had a lot of people try and push me into that bracket of, “Oh, wow, there’s this foreign doctor and he’s trying to save Filipinos.” I see that all the time in my comments, and I despise it, because that’s just not what it is. Like, I can, you know, I don’t care whether you’re Australian, Filipino, American, from Finland. Like, I’m just talking about medical misinformation. Like, to be honest, you know, I don’t have any more love… for the Philippines than I have for any other country. So there’s no element of wanting to be some savior. It’s just that I’ve seen a problem through my circumstance, and I want to talk about that problem. And that’s what I chose to do.
Yeah, but I do get a lot of backlash along those lines. There’s a lot of racism towards me, which is interesting, right? Because if I turned up and said lots of good things about the Philippines, I don’t think I in any way experienced that racism. Filipinos are very keen to, well not Filipinos, but a lot of Filipinos, sorry, not to generalize, a lot of Filipinos are very keen to hear praise about the country.
If I turned up and said, “Oh, wow, when I had a Filipino wife, I started eating rice. Oh, wow, when I had a Filipino wife, I started using a tabo.” Then if I made content like that, millions of people will watch it and love it and like it and no one will say anything, even though inherently I find that kind of content a little bit racist, because it’s generalizing a culture, which I think is wrong. And I despise it, and there’s so many white guys in the Philippines doing that kind of nonsense content and getting millions of views and people latch onto it.
I guess I’m in the other category in that I’m pointing out problems in the country. And once you start pointing out problems in the country, then you get the backlash and the white guy [savior accusation] and this, “What are you doing here?” Because I don’t think many foreigners do turn up and point out problems in the country. They just go along with the flow, because if you go along with the flow, that’s where the… That’s where the views are if you want to be a content creator in the Philippines. The views are in reinforcing stereotypes and superficially helping. Sadly, that’s the way the social media landscape exists in the Philippines at the moment.
MIKAEL: Yeah.
DOC ADAM: Bit of a rant. Bit of a rant.
MIKAEL: I’m really grateful that you haven’t made a Jollibee redemption video for all the people who get mad at you for some reason. (laughs) So I’m glad.
DOC ADAM: I mean, yeah, I find it very cringy. I mean, when I first started making social media back in 2015, 2016, like we did a – or maybe 2016, 2017, maybe – we did a bit of content which I look back now and I find it incredibly cringy. Anything that revolves around me speaking Tagalog and we.. I don’t even know how to describe it. Just… Any superficial praise of the Philippines or reinforcing these superficial stereotypes does give you an awful lot of views, but I absolutely despise it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t feel comfortable speaking Tagalog anymore, because a lot of people are just like, “Oh, wow, you must really love the Philippines if you speak Tagalog.” No, mate. I just learned the language because I wanted to communicate with people, to give them health advice. This Tagalog thing is not some gimmick that I’m using to become more famous and get more views. I just learned the language because my girlfriend speaks Tagalog and I wanted to talk to patients in Tagalog. That’s one of the reasons I stopped speaking because of the general attitude of people towards it. I just found it incredibly cringy.
MIKAEL: Yeah. There are a lot of medical terms in Tagalog that don’t have an English counterpart and vice versa, so I get why it’s important for you to learn the language to communicate better.
DOC ADAM: Well, and people can express themselves much better in Tagalog, so it makes me much more receptive to them. So nowadays, when I see Filipino patients here, I don’t speak Tagalog to them, but they speak Tagalog to me, and then I speak back in English, because obviously I still understand it fully. And I think that you get a much better history, you can understand their ideas and concerns much better if you speak the language and the dialect better. they feel much more comfortable. So it’s definitely a useful skill set to have with patients. I am glad I learned it, but from a public social media perspective, I don’t like what it represents, “white guy speaking Tagalog.” I don’t like to be put in that category. It’s not what I’m about, and I try and avoid it, sadly. Because if I spoke French nobody would act like that. if I spoke German nobody would act like that. But in the Philippines everyone acts like… I can’t even describe it, but everyone who’s listening to this probably knows how you act when, or… not how you act, but how people act when a white guy speaks Tagalog in the Philippines, and I just find that whole dynamic very cringy.
MIKAEL: Yeah, it is. It is. Everyone’s fawning over the guy who can speak Tagalog. So we’ve tackled reactions from medical misinformation peddlers, people who might be misinformed. What about Filipino doctors? Have you ever spoken? I know you’ve done some collaborative content with some Filipino medical practitioners who are also content creators. But with regard to your medical advice in general, and even your most recent… your book, have there been reactions from the Filipino medical community?
DOC ADAM: They have privately. None of the social media doctors have been in contact with me. But a lot of the private doctors have. I think a lot of the people buying the book are actually doctors. And a lot of people are writing to me saying, “Thank you, and thank you for exposing this,” and “You’re speaking the reality of my job in this book, you’re speaking what I have to deal with every day.” I’m hearing that an awful lot from Filipino doctors. So a lot of people privately are reaching out, yeah. But publicly there’s not been anything from the – I don’t even know how to describe – social media, social media doctor people in the Philippines.
MIKAEL: You mentioned that after, I think, this is not verbatim, but, “After I’m done promoting my book, I’m going to leave social media.” That was, I think, the last chapter. But recently, I saw, I think your most recent upload was about vaping. So are you still planning to leave social media or will you just like, sort of like shift your focus to something more general? What’s the plan right now?
DOC ADAM: We’ll keep pushing the book for a bit. And we have to be on social media to do that because I want to get the book out to as many people as possible. And so that’s why I’m doing it, because I want to get the book read by as many people as possible. If the book then takes on a life of its own and and and it’s making some changes in some institutions or anything like that, then I think I probably would just leave social media. I’d be happy. I’d be like, my job’s done. I’d be happy with that scenario. At the moment, we’re not there, so I’m still pushing.
I don’t love social media. I’m 40 years old. I enjoy spending my days snorkeling and spearfishing and going… you know. I enjoy doing lots of other things. I don’t enjoy sitting in front of a camera and talking at it too much. I think eventually I will stop doing videos. But for now, whilst I’m trying to increase the reach of the book, I think I’m going to keep doing it and hopefully increase the reach of that. I mean, I’m not… I mean, I’ve not been doing social media for four years. I’ve just come back. I don’t seem to have the knack I used to have. (laughs) I think maybe I’ve aged a bit, maybe the world’s moved on. I don’t think TikTok was really a thing when I was, when I was on social media last. I think the attention span of people was just reduced even further.
MIKAEL: Yeah.
DOC ADAM: It was very difficult, even before, to get people’s attention for a 10-minute video. But now, it seems next to impossible. I don’t know whether it’s me or people, but it’s been a challenge. We’ll keep going and we’ll see how it goes, but it’s been a challenge. I don’t know, you’ve probably experienced a similar scenario with science and trying to increase engagement. I imagine you can probably empathize. Any kind of content that involves, I don’t know, what the word is, science or critical thinking, any kind of content that involves those things it’s very hard to get the reach and to get the engagement. And I don’t know the answer. (laughs) I don’t think many people do. I find that if I start explaining anything in a video, then people just switch off. Sadly. Like I was just watching these TikToks today because I was looking for a video to react to. And it was literally this attractive girl. And all she was doing was dancing, and then pointing at words on the screen-
MIKAEL: Pointing at words, yeah.
DOC ADAM: -to do with health. So it was like, I don’t know. What you should do if you get high acid and it would be like three things and it’d just be her dancing in these stuff and she was like, no explanation, just words on screen. there wasn’t even… So it was like, “What you should do if you have high acid,” and one would be like, “Eat a banana,” for example, but there’s no explanation why, how, how it helps… it’s just like, “Eat a banana.” Like, that was the content. I was like, that’s so far beyond what I’m able to do. I don’t know if I’m ready for this world. (laughs)
MIKAEL: Yeah. It’s been bizarre, yeah. See, it’s already been a struggle pre-TikTok to capture people’s attention to anything longer than ten minutes. And now it’s a continuously uphill battle.
DOC ADAM: It’s impossible. I don’t know. (laughs) I’m too old and slow for that.
MIKAEL: We’ve been talking largely about, well, not so pleasant things. But to add a little bit of positivity to this, what has been the silver lining to this? I mean, it can’t have been all bad. For example, for starters, you started this with good intentions, definitely. So what can you say has been helpful or beneficial to you in this journey of debunking medical misinformation? What has been the silver lining to all of your experiences throughout these years?
DOC ADAM: For myself, personally, I think it’s made me a better person. I think I can analyse things a lot better. I can critically appraise things a lot quicker. I think I can talk to people at work in a lot more concise and effective manner. I think I’ve learned a lot from doing it. So personally, I don’t look back in the last five to seven years and think it was a waste of time at all. I think it’s really developed me as a person. As for the people I was making the videos for, I mean, it’s hard to measure if you’ve had any impact or not, isn’t it? I think it’s very difficult. I mean, prior to, I would say one thing I mean I think I was probably probably one of the first persons in the Philippines to start medically, like, a doctor medically debunking some of this stuff. And now I switch on social media, there’s millions of doctors in the Philippines debunking this kind of stuff everywhere. So maybe, you know… I don’t know if that was the result of me doing it, or whether it was going to happen anyway, but I mean, I could argue that I stimulated that somewhat in a way. Maybe I didn’t, maybe I did, but maybe, you know, there was a time where there wasn’t much stuff online about medical misinformation and now the Philippines is full of doctors debunking medical misinformation. And that happened kind of after I was making videos. So maybe I had some kind of impact there. I’m not sure. Hopefully I did.
MIKAEL: I can say that you were definitely part of the initial wave. That’s what I can say. As someone who’s been watching from the sidelines, looking at doctors taking to social media to debunk things, you were one of the first, definitely.
DOC ADAM: Thanks.
MIKAEL: All right. My last question would be: What can the average Filipino, whether they’ve read your book or not – hopefully, they’ll read your book after watching this – but the average person, the ordinary Filipino, what’s a concrete step that they can take to start changing things?
DOC ADAM: On a societal level, to not share or engage with content which is misleading. So to not just click share straight away, to watch something, critically assess it, and form an opinion as to whether it is nonsense or not before you share it. One of the problems with social media is it makes stuff go viral that’s medically nonsense. So to try and stop this from happening, we need to stop sharing this kind of content. So when you see this kind of misleading advice online, don’t just click the share button. think about it first. That would probably be the thing that anybody can do easily in the Philippines to… That would be my bit of advice.
Follow Doc Adam on YouTube, Facebook, X/Twitter, and Instagram.
Get a copy of Doc Adam’s book, “Quacks: My Journey Through Filipino Health Scams,” here – https://www.quacks.ph/
The Ask Theory Podcast is available via these platforms:
Spotify: LINK
Apple Podcasts: LINK
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/ask-theory
Breaker: https://www.breaker.audio/ask-theory
Google Podcasts: LINK
Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/gv6jxkki
Music: Hopeful Cinematic Ambient by bdProductions; My Mysterious Planet by Free Music
Author: Mikael Angelo Francisco
Bitten by the science writing bug, Mikael has years of writing and editorial experience under his belt. As the editor-in-chief of FlipScience, Mikael has sworn to help make science more fun and interesting for geeky readers and casual audiences alike.
