Google Removes AI Summaries From Some Health Searches Following Safety Concerns

- Following a Guardian investigation, Google quietly stopped AI responses for medical test searches. - AI Overviews might be delaying doctor visits by misleading users with oversimplified medical information. - Health advocate Vanessa Hebditch says AI shouldn't be part of health searches at all.

Adepu Bindu

13 Jan 2026 — 3 min read

Google Removes AI Summaries From Some Health Searches Following Safety Concerns

Do you always use Google for health-related issues? If so, we are confident you found Google Overviews helpful. Sure, you'll agree. However, here's a piece of news that might make you go 'oh.' Even the stats support your reliance, according to the National Library of Medicine, about 77% of people with a new diagnosis use Google for health searches.

So, Google has quietly stopped showing its AI Overviews specifically for medical test questions. Disappointing? Well, this has to happen after a news investigation found that some of the AI answers could be highly misleading. The information could cause panic and confusion, and so they had to go. Does this mean there will be no more AI responses to your health-related queries? Learn more.

What Was the Issue With Google AI Overviews for Medical Test Queries?

A recent report by The Guardian found that Google's AI Overviews might be "oversimplifying" medical information. What does it mean? To understand it, let's take, for instance, “What is the normal range for liver blood tests?” The typical AI Overviews response was simply a range of numbers. Now, why this could be misleading, you might think? The AI did not explain important medical factors, such as age, sex, ethnicity, and nationality. In any medical test results, these factors are quintessential.

Why Are Google Overviews in Medical Test Queries Dangerous?

It's said often yet ignored that AI analysing medical test results isn't the most reliable one. However, people do it to reassure themselves. Google Overviews, on the other hand (of the same issue), might be doing it more than required. So people assume themselves with health issues to be "normal."

This is perhaps dangerous, as false reassurance (especially when the results aren't great) could delay users from seeing a doctor.

Google’s Response to The Guardian Report on AI Overviews

Once The Guardian's investigation report was published, Google removed AI Overviews for specific searches like:

“What is the normal range for liver blood tests?”
“What is the normal range for liver function tests?”
There exists no AI-written summaries for these searches.

However, Google did not completely remove AI from health searches (it will still answer health-related queries in AI mode). Some similar searches, such as "lft reference range,” are still AI Overviews that show. But even those were taken down after a few hours. Hence, Google's fix was more selective than a full shutdown. As of now, Google has not commented on the removals.

Why Are Health Experts Still Worried About AI Overviews (AI in General)?

The health advocates are still not fully satisfied.

Vanessa Hebditch from the British Liver Trust said that removing AI Overviews is good news, but only fixes one small part of a much bigger issue. She doesn't want AI to be involved in health searches at all.

Final Thoughts...

AI summaries from any tool can only make information quick and easy to read, but they do not accurately convey complex medical information. According to experts, even minor errors or missing context can be misleading and harmful. Right now in the AI era, the medical industry is somewhere between convenience vs accuracy and speed vs safety. Those affected are users (not health content publishing companies or the platforms that host them).