The rise of smartphone apps and smartphone users putting their devices to work to track their own health has led to an explosion of health apps — 40,000 by the Brookings Institution’s reckoning. That, combined with little regulation or standards, has produced some snake oil apps reflecting the unregulated, Wild West environment of mobile health app development.
A survey of 1,500 health apps found that one in five claimed to cure or treat a medical problem. A Washington Post article on the survey conducting by members of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University who studied the mobile health apps, highlighted some of the more egregious examples:
- Acne: At least two have claimed to treat acne with the power of the smartphone’s light. Users are instructed to prop up the phone against their skin in acne-prone areas for a few minutes each day. These apps are no longer marketed.
- Breast augmentation: Developer CowKnow’s app claims that just as mothers’ breasts enlarge with milk when they’re pregnant, by listening to the sounds of crying babies 20 times a day, women’s breasts will also grow. That’s because the sound “stimulates the brain subliminally,” according to the article citing an advertisement.
- Pain relief: One app claims that the sound it generates akin to running water helps relieve pain.
- Determining sex of unborn children: About 10 of the apps claim they can help users choose the sex of their unborn children. A Ukrainian app costs as much as $29.99, although it is accompanied by a disclaimer that “it’s not 100 percent accurate,” and is no substitute for medical testing.
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In fairness, the Federal Trade Commission called shenanigans on the makers of two of the acne treatment apps last year and slapped AcneApp with a $14,294 fine and AcnePwnr with a $1,700 fine.
At least one company has moved to add some credibility to mobile apps with the idea that some health apps could be prescribed or at least distinguished from those that are not as well developed. Happtique is in the process of developing a certification program that could be adopted by healthcare providers. Although some mobile health app developers have sought 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for their apps as medical devices, most mobile health developers don’t see that as a feasible route. A lot of the mobile health apps being developed by startups and med-tech companies are about tracking health or improving adherence, improving patient engagement. There’s an argument that going the regulatory route adds more credibility, particularly for physicians who may be skeptical of mobile health apps.
