#StopFakeMeds #ThinkSmart
France has launched an initiative on health disinformation (1), focused on content, narratives, and information behaviours. As it stands, disinformation is framed primarily as a cognitive issue, not as a material, industrial, and criminal problem.
While the educational intent is clear, the approach remains strategically incomplete. It fails to address disinformation where it causes direct harm: through the circulation of fake and substandard health products, often in contexts of medicine shortages and parallel markets.
The report accompanying this initiative addresses fake medicines only marginally. It does not analyse the structural links between shortages, parallel markets, and the spread of falsified products, nor does it engage with the repeated international alerts issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). It also overlooks organized commercial disinformation, driven by criminal networks exploiting weaknesses in pharmaceutical supply chains.
The report acknowledges that “disinformation puts lives at risk”—yet it never connects this statement to the dangerous health products that continue to circulate. This secures the discourse while allowing harmful products to circulate, directly exposing patients to serious risks.
This blind spot is not unique to France. On 2 February 2026, in his opening remarks (2) to the 158th WHO Executive Board, the WHO Director-General made no reference to falsified and substandard medicines. The speech highlights access tools—prequalification, inspections, regulatory authorities—but avoids the issue of fake medicines.
This silence is striking given the global reorganisation of pharmaceutical production and in light of explicit evidence, such as the WHO–UNODC joint report (3) published in July 2025 on fatal poisonings caused by deliberately contaminated paediatric syrups. That report documents systemic failures in global production, quality control, and regulatory oversight.
By contrast, the United Kingdom has made a clear institutional choice. Through legislation adopted in 2021, it created an independent Patient Safety Commissioner (4) with an explicit mandate to protect patients from risks related to health products.
The role has been held since 2022 by Henrietta Hughes, whose mandate was renewed by Parliament in September 2025. Under her leadership, the function has emphasized product-related risks, systemic failures, and the need not to separate patient safety from the real quality of medicines and medical products.
If France wants its fight against health disinformation to have impact, it cannot remain disconnected from the reality of the products that circulate.
References
1 – France – Health disinformation initiative
sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/note_desinformation_sante_a4_minsan…
sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/rapport_information.pdf
2- WHO Director-General, Opening remarks – Executive Board (2 February 2026)
who.int/news-room/speeches/item/who-director-general-s-op…
3 – WHO–UNODC joint report (July 2025)
unodc.org/pdf/publications/WHO-UNODC_landmark-report-on-c…
4- UK – Patient Safety Commissioner
legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/3/part/1
patientsafetycommissioner.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/…
patientsafetycommissioner.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/…
