While fear certainly is a powerful motivator for many, it troubles me that this researcher seems to see it as the best motivator for many. Fear without hope leads to despondency; a "why bother, it's hopeless anyway" attitude. Fear without knowledge can also be paralyzing (hence their view that we need them to tell us what to do). We fear what we do not understand. We act on what we do understand (at least most people do). Knowledge is empowering and while there is a lot of misinformation on the internet, there is also a lot of very good information out there as well.
To be honest, my doctor never talked to me about the complications of diabetes and high blood pressure. I researched and found that information for myself. All I got was, "Your blood pressure and blood sugar are high. Here's two prescriptions. Get them filled and come back in 3 months for a recheck." I knew I was feeling crappy and that my test results weren't good but I had no idea how serious my state was until I started reading about it myself. That was motivating, especially upon discovering that while it was serious, there were a lot of things I could do myself to correct the situation. It certainly didn't lead me to a "well, see...it's not that serious. I can just go on like I was, take these pills and be fine" line of thinking. It lead me, instead, to realizing that I needed to make some changes and make them now if I wanted to still be around in 10 years and that pills alone were not going to "fix" it.
Personally, I think one big driver behind statements such as the one in the article above is that doctors don't want to have their edicts questioned and they also don't want to have to take the time to actually explain why the patient needs to do something about their condition. I can imagine it's threatening to have a patient say, "You know, I've researched this some on the internet and I don't think this is the best way to go for me." because now they are put in the position of having to enter into a dialogue with the patient instead of simply handing out prescriptions unquestioned.