YouTube taps hospitals to create videos to help people witnessing an overdose or heart attack
People walk past a billboard advertisement for YouTube in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 27, 2019.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images
YouTube is taking steps to fight against medical misinformation, especially when it comes to finding immediate tips on how to handle an emergency.
The company on Wednesday introduced a feature called First Aid Information Shelves, a library of step-by-step videos that show people what to do if they’re witnessing a drug overdose, heart attack or other life-threatening event.
Videos from accredited health organizations such as Mass General Brigham will appear pinned to the top of relevant search results so they’re easy to discover. YouTube users in the U.S. can find videos on 12 topics, including CPR, seizures, choking, bleeding and psychosis. Most are a minute or two long.
“The whole idea is timing and conciseness and trying to share that information as quickly as possible,” Garth Graham, global head of health care and public health at YouTube, told CNBC in an interview. Graham said people should always call first responders right away in the case of an emergency.
The videos will not contain ads, which means Google-owned YouTube won’t make money from them, Graham said.
YouTube was not involved with the content creation, which Graham said was left to experts. In addition to Mass General Brigham, health organizations such as the Mexican Red Cross and the American Heart Association have partnered with YouTube to help make the videos.
Content moderation has long been a challenge for YouTube, which removes videos if they’re found to be in violation of the company’s guidelines. The process is often slow and costly. Medical misinformation became a bigger problem during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the constant spreading of inaccurate messaging related to the effectiveness of vaccines and masks.
In July 2021, more than a year after the onset of the pandemic, YouTube announced plans to label videos and promote credible sources after facing criticism for its role in spreading misinformation. The company banned several high-profile anti-vaxxer accounts and said in September of that year that it had removed more than 130,000 videos for violating its Covid policies.
Even as the pandemic has subsided, medical misinformation continues to proliferate. Researchers recently found that popular videos on YouTube about insomnia and sleep contain both “misinformation and commercial bias,” according to a study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
YouTube announced a new framework for combating medical misinformation in August, outlining how the site will remove content that contradicts established guidance from health officials on subjects including cancer, Covid and reproductive health.
An example of what First Aid Information Shelves will look like on YouTube.
‘First videos that you see’
Mass General Brigham, the largest health-care system in Massachusetts, started officially partnering with YouTube in 2021 “to offer patients easier access to credible medical information,” according to a press release at the time.
The hospital has a dedicated content team with an expertise in medical education that determines the topics and substance of the videos, said Dr. Merranda Logan, the health system’s associate chief academic officer.
For YouTube’s First Aid Information Shelves, Mass General Brigham’s team produced 11 videos across topics such as heart attacks, strokes and seizures.
Logan said there’s a lot of medical information and misinformation online and distinguishing between the two can be a challenge. She said people should be able to turn to trusted experts in an emergency when “every minute, every second counts.”
“We wanted to make sure that these videos are the first videos that you see when you’re on YouTube and you search for any of those topics,” Logan said in an interview. “These videos really are not meant to replace calling 911, but to provide clear and concise information that can help during an emergency.”
When searching for videos on CPR, users will find content from the AHA, which writes the guidelines on the procedure and, since the 1990s, has worked to educate people about how to handle emergency situations.
“We have a really strong interest in partnering with our search engines that we know where people are going for content to make sure that they’re getting scientifically accurate content,” said Dr. Comilla Sasson, the AHA’s vice president for health-care business solutions for emergency cardiovascular care.
Videos will initially be available in English and Spanish, thanks to the help of the Mexican Red Cross, Graham said. Mass General Brigham is also using one of YouTube’s artificial intelligence-powered translation tools to present content in Spanish.
YouTube plans to add more topics, countries and languages in the future.
Graham said YouTube will regularly work with its partners to ensure the videos remain as accurate and up to date as possible. The shelves are part of an “ongoing evolution of information quality” at YouTube, he said.
“It’s important for us all to be prepared to respond to a series of common medical conditions that could happen to us, family, loved ones, people who are passing by,” Graham said. “We should be up to speed on that.”
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The Hims app arranged on a smartphone in New York on Feb. 12, 2025.
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Hims & Hers Health shares closed up 5% on Tuesday after the company announced patients can access Eli Lilly‘s weight loss medication Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro, as well as the generic injection liraglutide, through its platform.
Zepbound, Mounjaro and liraglutide are part of the class of weight loss medications called GLP-1s, which have exploded in popularity in recent years. Hims & Hers launched a weight loss program in late 2023, but its GLP-1 offerings have evolved as the company has contended with a volatile supply and regulatory environment.
Lilly’s weekly injections Zepbound and Mounjaro will cost patients $1,899 a month, according to the Hims & Hers website. The generic liraglutide will cost $299 a month, but it requires a daily injection and can be less effective than other GLP-1 medications.
“As we look ahead, we plan to continue to expand our weight loss offering to deliver an even more holistic, personalized experience,” Dr. Craig Primack, senior vice president of weight loss at Hims & Hers, wrote in a blog post.
A Lilly spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “no affiliation” with Hims & Hers and noted that Zepbound is available at lower costs for people who are insured for the product or for those who buy directly from the company.
In May, Hims & Hers started prescribing compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s GLP-1 weight loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy. The offering was immensely popular and helped generate more than $225 million in revenue for the company in 2024.
But compounded drugs can traditionally only be mass produced when the branded medications treatments are in shortage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in February that the shortage of semaglutide injections products had been resolved.
That meant Hims & Hers had to largely stop offering the compounded medications, though some consumers may still be able to access personalized doses if it’s clinically applicable.
During the company’s quarterly call with investors in February, Hims & Hers said its weight loss offerings will primarily consist of its oral medications and liraglutide. The company said it expects its weight loss offerings to generate at least $725 million in annual revenue, excluding contributions from compounded semaglutide.
But the company is still lobbying for compounded medications. A pop up on Hims & Hers’ website, which was viewed by CNBC, encourages users to “use your voice” and urge Congress and the FDA to preserve access to compounded treatments.
With Tuesday’s rally, Hims and Hers shares are up about 27% in 2025 after soaring 172% last year.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds a smartphone as he makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta’s head of artificial intelligence research announced Tuesday that she will be leaving the company.
Joelle Pineau, the company’s vice president of AI research, announced her departure in a LinkedIn post, saying her last day at the social media company will be May 30.
Her departure comes at a challenging time for Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a top priority, investing billions of dollars in an effort to become the market leader ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Google.
Zuckerberg has said that it is his goal for Meta to build an AI assistant with more than 1 billion users and artificial general intelligence, which is a term used to describe computers that can think and take actions comparable to humans.
“As the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work,” Pineau wrote. “I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people.”
Vice President of AI Research and Head of FAIR at Meta Joelle Pineau attends a technology demonstration at the META research laboratory in Paris on February 7, 2025.
Stephane De Sakutin | AFP | Getty Images
Pineau was one of Meta’s top AI researchers and led the company’s fundamental AI research unit, or FAIR, since 2023. There, she oversaw the company’s cutting-edge computer science-related studies, some of which are eventually incorporated into the company’s core apps.
She joined the company in 2017 to lead Meta’s Montreal AI research lab. Pineau is also a computer science professor at McGill University, where she is a co-director of its reasoning and learning lab.
Some of the projects Pineau helped oversee include Meta’s open-source Llama family of AI models and other technologies like the PyTorch software for AI developers.
Pineau’s departure announcement comes a few weeks ahead of Meta’s LlamaCon AI conference on April 29. There, the company is expected to detail its latest version of Llama. Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, to whom Pineau reported to, said in March that Llama 4 will help power AI agents, the latest craze in generative AI. The company is also expected to announce a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot, CNBC reported in February.
“We thank Joelle for her leadership of FAIR,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “She’s been an important voice for Open Source and helped push breakthroughs to advance our products and the science behind them.”
Pineau did not reveal her next role but said she “will be taking some time to observe and to reflect, before jumping into a new adventure.”
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