Seemingly spreading faster than COVID-19, misinformation and outright lies have swept the globe during the last two years, undermining the pandemic response in hospitals and communities.
In a recent call to action report, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) warned infection preventionists this phenomenon has been harmful and no doubt will occur during the next pandemic.1
“While struggling to address the COVID-19 pandemic, public health agencies have also been challenged with overcoming an ‘infodemic’ — a flood of information, of varied reliability and accuracy — that can confuse or overwhelm the public,” APIC said.1 “Combatting misinformation and rumors diverts valuable resources away from emergency management. Misinformation shared within healthcare facilities and systems is a challenge that continues to require substantial resources to overcome. … Therefore, the goal is to guide and educate people on finding trustworthy and reliable sources for information.”
Congress should direct resources for ongoing public health education about the benefits and effectiveness of vaccines in preventing infectious diseases. Specifically, “Congress should fund research on infodemiology and share multilevel strategies that can be implemented to combat misinformation campaigns,” APIC emphasized.
Identifying and correcting misinformation is a time-consuming and laborious task, said someone who is trying to do it: Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.
“It takes me hours to write one scientific post, and it’ll take approximately two seconds to retweet misinformation,” she said at a webinar hosted by the American Public Health Association. “This is a losing battle, but one that’s important to continue to fight. And a few of us really can’t do it alone.”
In that regard, she urged clinicians and public health officials to recognize they can play a role by reinforcing accurate data while acknowledging unknowns remain.
“Inaccurate information can be shared unconsciously because people believe it’s true. Inaccurate information shared consciously [comes from those who] want to do harm or they want to instill distrust,” Jetelina said. “It’s a tsunami of information. Some of it’s accurate, but some of it’s not, making it really hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance.”
Social media has become the primary source of news and information for many people. “Because of this social network we have, that misinformation goes further, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth,” she said. “[In this] landscape, recognize that our relationship to information is emotional. Misinformation on fear, on distrust, really elicits strong reactions and strong emotions, and we see this on all topics. Language that plays on fear gets very high engagement.”
Kernel of Truth?
That said, when you hear possibly inaccurate information, the hardest thing to do may be what Jetelina strongly recommended: listen.
“We need to listen, and the reason is because we need to acknowledge that legitimate concerns exist,” she said. “We have failed in the past, especially among certain groups. We have to recognize that communication is a two-way street.”
After listening to the claim, try to find a “kernel of truth,” if possible, one that you can address as you turn the narrative to correct information. Be thoughtful in your language, she added.
“How we communicate correct information matters, especially to people who are hesitant or believe in conspiracy theories. We cannot be condescending, alienating, not empathetic,” Jetelina said. “We cannot say words like ‘dumb’ or ‘insane.’ Challenge their worldview and people will double down, because their worldview is linked to their identity, it’s linked to the tribes that they’re a part of, and we need to set new foundations of trust.”
One popular misinformation technique to undermine vaccination is ignoring the obvious disclaimers caveats and citing the raw number of deaths on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (VAERS) system.
For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports “more than 553 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from Dec. 14, 2020, through Feb. 22, 2022. During this time, VAERS received 12,775 preliminary reports of death (0.0023%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine.”2
This technically is true, but can be taken completely out of context if one ignores the VAERS site’s numerous disclaimers and warnings about inferring causality to vaccination and reported deaths.
“Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to the system,” VAERS states on its website.3 “While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases.”
“The CDC website did say [some deaths] were reported — that is true,” Jetelina says. “The problem is this news article and the people who followed it came to an inaccurate conclusion because they were missing important context. The vaccine doesn’t kill you.”
Infertility Myths
The fears of infertility in women after COVID-19 immunization appears to have begun with reports in Germany alleging the vaccine may trigger the immune system to attack the placenta.
“What’s the kernel of truth with this?” she asked. “The placenta does have a receptor that’s very similar to the receptor of the spike protein. They are of the same family, so they do work the same way. However, they aren’t similar enough. They don’t have enough amino acid sequences to cause confusion to the immune system. In other words, the immune system cannot and will not mistake the placenta for a virus. The problem is this context is lost, and people come to an inaccurate conclusion that vaccines cause infertility.”
Another myth that surfaced early and often was the COVID-19 vaccination can alter the recipients’ DNA.
“We have a generally scientific illiterate base,” she said. “mRNA sounds like DNA, so that’s a truth, and we need to educate [patients about the] differences and explain why this isn’t a concern. Lead with the truth and walk them through the process. mRNA cannot insert itself in DNA because it’s missing a tool, called integrase, that the vaccine doesn’t have. This is literally biologically impossible.”
Sometimes, people distribute bad information for bad reasons, such as turning a profit with no regard to downstream harm. “A lot of people don’t know that the anti-vaxx industry boasts annual revenue of at least $35 million a year and it is worth up to $1.1 billion to big tech,” Jetelina said.
Her figures come from a report on anti-vaxx profiteering by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which claims, as the world responded to the pandemic, “a subversive, established industry of anti-vaxxers has seen an opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of public health. This fifth column has operated in plain sight, publicly undermining our collective confidence in doctors, governments, and medical science.”4
The report estimates 62 million people follow anti-vaxx material on various social media platforms.
“Be proactive instead of reactive,” Jetelina said. “We need to anticipate concerns. It still, to this day, boggles my mind that we had nine months to prepare for vaccines, we knew vaccines were coming for SARS-CoV-2, but we played a reactive game. We didn’t prepare. And so now we continue to have to play catch-up.”
REFERENCES
- Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. Between a rock and hard place: Recommendations for balancing patient safety and pandemic response. Published March 2022. https://apic.org/between-a-rock-and-hard-place-march-2022/
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Selected adverse events reported after COVID-19 vaccination. Updated March 3, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
- Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. VAERS Data. https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
- Center for Countering Digital Hate. Pandemic profiteers: The business of anti-vaxx. Published June 1, 2021. https://www.counterhate.com/_files/ugd/f4d9b9_13cbbbef105e459285ff21e94ec34157.pdf
Misinformation and outright lies have swept the globe during the last two years, undermining the pandemic response in hospitals and communities. In a recent call to action report, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology warned infection preventionists this phenomenon has been harmful and no doubt will occur during the next pandemic.
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