On this week’s episode of "What’s Health Got to Do with It," we took another look at the health misinformation digital landscape.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's information on Twitter can easily be viewed with equal authority to your next-door neighbor's opinion on a topic, misinformation and mistrust breed easily.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in some huge missteps by the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health, including amplifying the health care institutional information void. This left many folks confused and allowed some dangerous voices to garner an audience, so much so that the U.S. surgeon general declared health misinformation to be a significant public health challenge.
Obscenely low COVID-19 vaccination rates in kids, the recent outbreaks of polio and measles, court cases on patients demanding ivermectin for late stage COVID, and even assaults on flight attendants over mask mandates — some of which led to emergency landings — are prime examples of a dangerous pattern emerging.
If you still aren’t sure what to do with all the information you are hearing online or don’t know where to turn for accurate medical information, this show is for you.
Guests:
- Dr. Kristy Roschke, managing director, News Co/Lab, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University in Phoenix
- Dr. Nancy Staats, retired anesthesiologist and activist.
- Stephanie Colombini, WFSU.