Correcting the Same Myth: How Fighting Misinformation Weighs Down Pharmacists

Health misinformation was declared a significant public health challenge by the US Surgeon General in 2021, and pharmacists have since been named among the health professionals best positioned to push back against it. The American College of Clinical Pharmacy’s (ACCP) 2023 Public and Professional Relations Committee wrote that pharmacists sit "at the intersection of medication management and health information needs," making them central to helping patients and providers make informed choices, whether the conversation is about vaccines, opioids, or OTC medications.¹

Mark Garofoli, PharmD, MBA, BCGP, CPE, CTTS, a clinical pain management and addiction pharmacist at WVU Medicine and Director of Experiential Learning at the West Virginia University School of Pharmacy, said the topics he corrects most often haven't changed much: vaccines, opioids, and acetaminophen, with a clear uptick tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Ensuring trust is a necessary and concrete strategy along the way, which in the recent pandemic was not always the case," Garofoli said. “We as pharmacists absolutely need to stand up to misinformation not only to address it but to proactively prevent it with always providing information in the first place.”

That correction work is not a side task. The ACCP commentary frames it as a 3-part professional responsibility: gathering intelligence on which myths are circulating locally, deploying communication frameworks such as the "truth sandwich" or motivational interviewing during encounters, and following up with patients afterward, sometimes over multiple visits, to reinforce accurate information.¹

The Grind of Saying the Same Thing Again

For Garofoli, the repetition itself is part of the burden. Asked what it feels like to correct the same myth dozens of times a week, he didn't sugarcoat it.

"Let's be real, it can be mind-numbing at certain moments yet exhilarating at others," Garofoli said. "We as pharmacists, the medication experts, whittle complicated information down to digestible nuggets all the time. Taking the same strategy to steer the ship in respect to misinformation can really help."

He also described the encounters as double-edged for his own well-being. "Instances of clear misinformation (on repeat) tend to end up in conversations amongst professionals, which in and of itself can be therapeutic for a professional," Garofoli said. "Just as patient care is all about the relationships and conversations, one's own professional entity and well-being can navigate the same path."

Not every pharmacist has that outlet, and the ACCP commentary is candid that misinformation conversations can misfire. It warns that engaging in detailed correction outside an established patient relationship "can lead to unintended confrontation” and that pharmacists should be prepared to say "not enough information is available to make a conclusion" rather than overreach.¹

Layered onto that risk is a burnout problem that predates, but is likely compounded by, the misinformation fight. A 2026 opinion article in Frontiers in Public Health reports that pooled prevalence estimates show nearly 1 in 2 pharmacists experience significant emotional exhaustion, a burden the authors trace to structural imbalance rather than individual resilience. Using the Job Demands-Resources model, the authors argue that when demands, including time pressure, workload intensity, and emotional labor, chronically exceed available resources, including autonomy, staffing, and recognition, emotional exhaustion and disengagement become predictable outcomes rather than isolated events.³

The same article notes that pharmacists operate in "interruption-prone environments while managing high-risk therapies, regulatory documentation, and performance metrics, often simultaneously," and that core professional activities such as patient counseling and clinical reasoning "are rarely captured in operational dashboards."³

Misinformation counseling fits squarely into that uncaptured category, as it takes time, emotional regulation, and follow-up, but it rarely shows up as a line item in a pharmacy's productivity metrics.

Competing with Uncredentialed Voices

Garofoli said he doesn't just compete with misinformation online, but he treats his own digital presence, including his website and social media, as part of the job.

"A simple ask of ChatGPT to address a clinical scenario is a great pulse check for whether actual health care experts are the predominant force for a given topic online," he said. Asked whether he feels like he's competing with influencers and podcasters for patients' trust, he was direct: "I don't feel like that; I know that it is a stark reality. Some of those folks play checkers, and others play chess. “Always be the one playing chess."

That dynamic mirrors a concern raised separately by pharmacy researchers about the rise of self-proclaimed "experts" on social media, many of whom lack pharmacist licensure or verified practice experience, capturing follower attention that could otherwise reinforce credentialed pharmacists as trusted sources. The authors argue that health and pharmacy media content creators, along with peer institutions, "have a responsibility to minimize the extent of medical misinformation disseminated on pharmacists' stated practice expertise through their platforms."⁴

For working pharmacists, that means the burden of correcting misinformation is compounded by an uneven playing field, one where credentialed expertise doesn't always come with the loudest microphone.

What Keeps Pharmacists Going

Despite the grind, Garofoli pointed to moments of institutional success as proof that the work matters. He cited the pharmacy profession's unified response to last year's acetaminophen safety concerns as a model.

"The response by just about every health care professional organization on the planet to last year's acetaminophen concerns was impressive, concrete, evidence-based, and universal to say the least,” he said. “That was a bullseye that needs to be replicated."

Asked what keeps him in the profession, Garofoli didn't hesitate. "Respect of the past, opportunities galore in the future, with a large dash of patient impact," he said. "It's not illegal to have 'personal facts'... however, when said personal facts are driven into others’ dura mater, the scenario can become problematic. Health care professionals such as us pharmacists need to proactively share information to prevent misinformation. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of treatment."

That proactive posture is consistent with what burnout researchers are now recommending at the system level, such as reallocating nonclinical tasks, protecting clinical time, and building organizational accountability into workload design rather than relying on individual pharmacists to absorb the emotional cost of correcting the record.³

REFERENCES

1. Harris IM, Hilaire ML, Jeon M, et al. Pharmacists' role in combating medical misinformation. J Am Coll Clin Pharm. 2024;1-5. doi:10.1002/jac5.2005

2. Popčević M, Javorina T, Košiček M, Meštrović A. Exposure of Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians to Violence in Community Pharmacies in Southeast Europe: Frequency and Ethical Considerations. Pharmacy (Basel). 2024;12(3):88. Published 2024 Jun 4. doi:10.3390/pharmacy12030088

3. Zavaleta-Monestel E, Söderlund LÅ, Guiu-Segura JM, Mora-Jiménez J, Arguedas-Chacón S. Pharmacist burnout: from coping to system accountability in the medication-use process. Front Public Health. 2026;13:1749332. Published 2026 Jan 23. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2025.1749332

4. Santibañez M, Boylan PM, Paloucek FP, Caballero J. The social media "expert" phenomenon: need for increased pharmacy practice transparency. Front Commun. 2024;9:1467468. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2024.1467468