National Academy of Medicine (NAM) – is big tech partnership a bridge to reliable health information, or a reputational risk?

Summary In a NEJM Perspective, Victor Dzau and Laura DeStefano of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) describe two public–private collaborations aimed at improving reliable health information on major digital platforms. The first, launched in 2020 with YouTube, convened an unpaid NAM advisory group to define principles for identifying credible health sources; the resulting 2021 framework informed YouTube’s source-labeling and was later cited by Microsoft and WHO. These citations demonstrate reach, not independently verified gains in health knowledge, behavior, or outcomes. The second, running May 2025–May 2026 with $140,000 from Google, tasked an unpaid NAM panel with blinded evaluation of human- versus Gemini-generated answers to 100 nutrition questions across accuracy, safety, completeness, and quality. NAM asserts independent scoring, though Google staff attend review meetings; findings will be published by NAM. The authors contend that independent deliberation, conflict-of-interest disclosure, funding–judgment separation, and public reporting safeguard institutional integrity. Comment: The rationale is sound: scientific institutions cannot improve...