Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett has been slammed by experts for sharing harmful health misinformation that could lead to cancer patients getting ‘very, very sick’
Diary Of A CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett has been slammed for sharing harmful health misinformation.
The Dragons’ Den star regularly invites influential or famous guests on his extremely popular podcast. However, he was slammed after guests on his show claimed cancer could be treated by following a keto diet and that the Covid vaccine was a ‘net negative for society’.
Steven, 32, was slammed by experts for not challenging or questioning these claims. Associate Professor in public health and cancer researcher from Trinity College Dublin, Professor David Grimes, said that cancer patients could ‘get very, very, sick’ if they followed the recommendations of the so-called gurus.
“You could potentially and very realistically get very, very, sick,” he explained. Another professor, Professor Heidi Larson, hit out at the podcast for ‘sending people away from evidence-based medicine’. “[Patients] stop doing things that might have some side effects, even though it could save their life,” she said.
A BBC investigation recently found that Steven has been amplifying harmful health misinformation. The BBC World Service, in an analysis of 23 health-related podcast episodes, found 15 contained an average of 14 harmful health claims that went against scientific evidence.
Cécile Simmons, from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, a think tank which specialises in disinformation research, believes this type of content can help him to grow audiences. “Health-related clickbait content with scary titles does really well online with the algorithm amplifying that,” she explained.
A spokesperson for Flight Studio said, “The Diary Of A CEO (DOAC), is an open-minded, long-form conversation with world leaders, global experts, CEOs, athletes, authors, actors, and other individuals identified for their distinguished and eminent career and/or consequential life experience.
“Each guest episode is thoroughly researched prior to commission. DOAC offers guests freedom of expression and believes that progress, growth and learning comes from hearing a range of voices, not just those Steven and the DOAC team necessarily agree with.”
The BBC claims to have reviewed 15 specific episodes of nearly 400 published to date. For any reporting of DOAC to focus on less than 4% of episodes with an extremely limited proportion of guests – some of whom have featured on the BBC – to create a broader, and in our opinion, partial narrative is disappointing, misleading and frankly, disingenuous.”
Back in August, Steven’s advertisements were banned for being ‘misleading’. The Dragons’ Den star promoted products for Huel and Zoe on social media but a watchdog said they were misleading as it wasn’t made clear he had business affiliations with both companies. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the adverts, which were on Facebook in February, could mislead customers.
Steven is a director at Huel, a company which makes plant-based meals, snacks, drinks, and food supplements. He is also an investor at Zoe – a diet advice company. Both companies disputed the ban and claimed it would make sure customers know they had a “commercial relationship” with Steven.
The Zoe advert showed Steven with a patch on his arm along with the a quote that said: “If you haven’t tried Zoe yet, give it a shot. It might just change your life.” The health testing company argued that customers would understand there would be an association if a celebrity appeared in an advert.
Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.
