Publications
Recent Posts
RSC Policy Briefing: Let's Do Better: Public Representations of COVID-19 Science
COVID science is being both done and circulated at a furious pace. While it is inspiring to see the research community responding so vigorously to...
BMJ: COVID-19 and ‘immune boosting’ on the internet: a content analysis of Google search results
The spread of misinformation has accompanied the coronavirus pandemic, including topics such as immune boosting to prevent COVID-19. This study...
Medical Law International: The legal and policy considerations of transplanting pediatric thymus regulatory T cells as an immunotherapy in Canada
Regulatory T cells (Tregs) hold promise for cell-based therapies for autoimmunity and transplant rejection. In Canada, the potential collection,...
Obstetrics and Gynaecology: Discussing NIPT on Reddit: The benefits, the concerns, the comradery
As the use of Non‐Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) increases, its benefits and concerns are being examined through surveys, qualitative studies and...
American Journal of Public Health: Crowdfunding Cannabidiol (CBD) for Cancer: Hype and Misinformation on GoFundMe
Misinformation around CBD for cancer is widespread on medical crowdfunding campaigns. Given the potential adverse impact, crowdfunding platforms,...
Bio Med Central: “Immune Boosting” in the time of COVID: selling immunity on Instagram
The concept of “immune boosting” is scientifically misleading and often used to market unproven products and therapies. This paper presents an...
Taylor & Francis Online: The consumer representation of DNA ancestry testing on YouTube
Ancestry testing and personal social media accounts were commonly promoted, demonstrating biotechnological hype where promotion abounds and...
BMC Medical Ethics: The law and problematic marketing by private umbilical cord blood banks
Private umbilical cord blood banking is a for-profit industry in which parents pay to store blood for potential future use. Governments have noted...
OSF PrePrints: Does Debunking Work? Correcting COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media
One of the defining characteristics of this pandemic has been the spread of misinformation. Indeed, the World Health Organization famously called...
JOGC: Non-Invasive Prenatal Screening: Navigating the Relevant Legal Norms
In sum, the law will define and bound the acceptable behaviour of physicians recommending or administering NIPS, and nudge the technology's...
Nature: Pseudoscience and COVID-19 — we’ve had enough already
The scientific community must take up cudgels in the battle against bunk.
Érudit: Research, Digital Health Information and Promises of Privacy: Revisiting the Issue of Consent
L’obligation de préserver la vie privée des patients et des participants à la recherche est fondamentale en recherche biomédicale.
Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease: Policy Challenges for Organ Allocation in an Era of "Precision Medicine"
March 20, 2020 Timothy Caulfield, Blake Murdoch, Ruth Sapir-Pichhadze, Paul Keown
Policy Options: misinformation, alternative medicine and the coronavirus
Alternative medicine practitioners are leveraging the fear around coronavirus to sell products and procedures that are scientifically unproven.
Future Medicine: Portrayal of umbilical cord blood research in the North American popular press: promise or hype?
Findings demonstrate the need for continual monitoring of the media portrayals of UCB as stem cell and transplantation research develops and as...
Journal of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology: The Law and Ethics of Switching from Biologic to Biosimilar in Canada
An in depth look in the implementation of nonmedical/'forced' switches by cutting drug coverage for reference biologics and funding only less...
Transplantation Direct: Public Solicitation and The Canadian Media: Two Cases of Living Liver Donation, Two Different Stories
Two stories of public solicitation for living liver donors received substantial Canadian media attention in 2015: The Wagner family, with twin...
BioMedCentral: Archives of Physiotherapy: The "subluxation" issue: an analysis of chiropractic clinic websites
Based on the controversy surrounding vertebral subluxation, the substantial number of clinic websites aligning their practice with vertebral...
The Globe and Mail: Unproven stem-cell treatments can be dangerous. The hype needs to stop
Timothy Caulfield Special to the Globe and Mail Published July 10, 2019
Stem Cell Reports: How to Peddle Hope: An Analysis of YouTube Patient Testimonials of Unproven Stem Cell Treatments
Providers capitalize on patient testimonials to market unproven stem cell treatments (SCTs). We evaluated 159 YouTube videos and found patients...
Canadian Journal of Bioethics: Health Misinformation and the Power of Narrative Messaging in the Public Sphere
Numerous social, economic and academic pressures can have a negative impact on representations of biomedical research. We review several of the...
The American Journal of Gastroenterology: Promotion of Testing for Celiac Disease and the Gluten-Free Diet Among Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practitioners
Boyer, Graham; Caulfield, Timothy, BSc, LLB, LLM; Green, Peter H. R., MD; Lebwohl, Benjamin, MD, MS
PLOS: Media portrayal of illness-related medical crowdfunding: A content analysis of newspaper articles in the United States and Canada
Medical crowdfunding is a growing phenomenon, and newspapers are publishing on the topic. This research analyzed how illness-related crowdfunding...
Genetics in Medicine: CRISPR in the North American popular press
Alessandro Marcon, Zubin Master, Vardit Ravitsky, and Timothy Caulfield.
Policy Options: When crowdfunding pays for bunk medical treatments
Crowdfunding platforms have a role to play in countering the misinformation spread by campaigns that raise money for unproven homeopathic...
The Lancet Oncology: Patients' crowdfunding campaigns for alternative cancer treatments
Jeremy Snyder, Timothy Caulfield.
NCBI NLM National Institute of Health: Influenza vaccination discourse in major Canadian news media, 2017-2018
Our recent study found much of the media coverage of flu vaccine to be accurate/positive. We speculate misinformation coming from other sources...
Policy Options: Vaccines, public trust and learning from my hate mail
Column by Timothy Caulfield. November 6, 2018
NLM: Spinning the Genome: Why Science Hype Matters
There is a growing body of literature that describes both the degree to which science is hyped and how and why that hype happens. Hype can be...
BMJ Open: Exploiting science? A systematic analysis of complementary and alternative medicine clinic websites' marketing of stem cell therapies
Blake Murdoch, Amy Zarzeczny, Timothy Caulfield
Medical Law International: The challenge of human challenge research models: A Canadian perspective
Research in which healthy volunteers are exposed to pathogens or other aetiologic agents that may cause disease remains controversial. Proponents...
Sage Journals: Pragmatic clinical trials and the consent process
Publication by Blake Murdoch and Timothy Caulfield.
Journal of Law and Biosciences: Injecting doubt: responding to the naturopathic anti-vaccination rhetoric
Little evidence to support much of what naturopaths offer. And the sensible advice (exercise, sleep) often wrapped in a blanket of pseudoscience.
CNTRP: Understanding Opt-Out or Presumed Consent - what are the challenges and how would it work in Canada?
This Fast Fact briefly explains the framework and implications of opt-out consent for deceased organ donation, describes the social and legal...
Cogent Medicine: Commenting on chiropractic: A YouTube analysis
Numerous studies have examined health-related YouTube videos, but very few studies have also investigated the health-related discussions taking...
Combatting Unlicensed Stem Cell Interventions through Truthful Advertising Law: A Survey of Regulatory Trends
Professor Ogbogu proposes the adoption and application of consumer protection legal frameworks, specifically truthful advertising laws and...
From Kim Kardashian to Dr. Oz: The Future Relevance of Popular Culture to Our Health and Health Policy
Professor Timothy Caulfield transcribes Celebrity and Health Behaviours and Beliefs, Inaccurate and Uncritical Portrayals, Celebrities and the...
Bioéthique Online: Doing Research with Vulnerable Populations: The Case of Intravenous Drug Users
2016 B Murdoch, T Caulfield. This review article considers ethical concerns when doing research on potentially vulnerable people who inject drugs...
JMIR: Chiropractic and Spinal Manipulation Therapy on Twitter: Case Study Examining the Presence of Critiques and Debates
Spinal manipulation therapy (SMT) is a popular though controversial practice. The debates surrounding efficacy and risk of SMT are only partially...
BioNews: Event Review: Gene editing - exploring the Canadian context
By Professor Vardit Ravitsky, Professor Bartha Knoppers, Professor Timothy Caulfield, Professor Rosario Isasi, Erika Kleiderman, and Professor...
Science, Celebrities, and Public Engagement
Timothy Caulfield and Declan Fahy on Science, Celebrities, and Public Engagement in the Summer 2016 Issues in Science and Technology. (www.issues.org)
Science: Confronting stem cell hype
Professor Timothy Caulfield co-authors new stem cell policy guidelines.
The BMJ Opinion: Timothy Caulfield: The straw men of integrative health and alternative medicine
Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta, a Trudeau Fellow and the author of "Is Gwyneth...
BMC Medical Ethics: The commercialization of university-based research: Balancing risks and benefits
NCBI National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health: The Fountain of Stem Cell-Based Youth? Online Portrayals of Anti-Aging Stem Cell Technologies.
Rachul CM, Percec I, Caulfield T
The Obesity Gene and the (Misplaced) Search for a Personalized Approach to Our Weight Gain Problems
Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy
BMJ Open: Representations of the health value of vitamin D supplementation in newspapers: media content analysis
To examine the nature of media coverage of vitamin D in relation to its role in health and the need for supplements.
Ocular gene transfer in the spotlight: implications of newspaper content for clinical communications
Ethics and Genomic Incidental Findings
The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) recently issued a statement (1) recommending that all laboratories conducting clinical...
Reassessing direct-to-consumer portrayals of unproven stem cell therapies: is it getting better?
Aim: To determine whether increased scrutiny of 'stem cell tourism' has resulted in changes to online claims by clinics that provide putative...
The Assisted Human Reproduction Act Reference and the Thin Line Between Health and Crime
When should health be treated as a subject of criminal law? With respect to health, the Constitution Act, 18671 does not specifically assign...