Darragh Worland:
Welcome back to Is that a fact?, brought to you by the nonprofit News Literacy Project. I’m your host, Darragh Worland. Earlier this year, we spoke to medical and misinformation experts about why some people might be hesitant to get one of the COVID-19 vaccines. We learned that misinformation was a major factor affecting vaccine confidence, and also contributed to skepticism about the vaccines. But now that vaccines have been widely available to most Americans for almost a year, it’s become clear that politics has also influenced who has chosen to get vaccinated. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and this is a quote, “There continued to be differences in COVID-19 vaccination rates along partisan lines; a gap that has grown over time.” A Kaiser study showed that almost 53% of people who live in counties that voted for Biden were fully vaccinated, compared to just 40% of people in counties that went for Trump.

To better understand why people continue to reject overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the safety of the vaccines when compared to the dangers posed by the virus, we speak to three people in this episode to learn more about the false narratives surrounding COVID-19 and the vaccines. We begin by speaking to Dr. Katherine Wu, a staff writer for The Atlantic, who has covered many different aspects of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. She tells us that when there is a crisis like this pandemic, it’s not unusual for misinformation to follow and spread confusion. Next, we speak to Tony Green, a Republican voter who suffered tragic consequences because of his disbelief in what he originally called a scamdemic. While he survived COVID-19, other members of his family were not as lucky.

And finally, we talk to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy to learn more about why he issued his Confronting Health Misinformation Advisory, and a special toolkit he created to help people learn how to navigate their way through all kinds of health misinformation. First, we speak to Dr. Wu of The Atlantic. With a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University, she’s been perfectly positioned to report on the pandemic, bringing both sophisticated scientific knowledge to her reporting and an ability to translate that science for a lay audience, something we’ve all sorely needed this past year and a half. Thanks for joining us today, Katherine.

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
Thank you for having me.

Darragh Worland:
So, you’ve covered COVID-19 from basically every possible angle. What’s the wackiest piece of misinformation about the virus or the vaccines, that you’ve come across so far?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
It’s definitely hard to pick just one. And I’ll admit that I’m always a little nervous about repeating some of the crazy things I hear, because I don’t want to give people ideas that they haven’t heard before, but with that big caveat, I think one I’ve heard recently, that I really wondered, “Wow, where did that come from?” s that not only could the vaccine potentially affect someone’s fertility, but that someone being vaccinated near you could impact your fertility, as someone just in proximity of that vaccinated person.

Darragh Worland:
So, where would a rumor like that circulate? Where would you see something like that and where would it originate?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
It’s always so difficult to track misinformation to its source, and I haven’t actually successfully done it maybe ever, but where we tend to see these things circulating is in online forums. People start asking questions on Reddit, on Facebook. And as soon as someone hears something emotionally salient, something grabby, something that could impact them and makes them feel as though they’re at risk, that becomes really memorable. They start asking questions about it, people hear about it and wonder, “Well, I haven’t heard that before, but that sounds really bad if it’s true.” And it just spreads like wildfire from there. Certainly, the way that this spread through networks, I don’t think is even necessarily malicious. I think people are fearful of something that they don’t fully understand, and it’s completely understandable that they would be concerned for their health during a moment of crisis like this.

Darragh Worland:
So, one thing I’m really curious about is whether or not it’s common for there to be misinformation surrounding a virus of this type. Did we see this kind of misinformation regarding Ebola outbreaks, or are we in uncharted waters here? This seems kind of different.

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
I think for as long as people have been socializing with each other and dealing with medical crises, or really any kind of crises, there has been a misinformation problem. People want to make sense of something that’s happening around them that is causing immense distress, they want to feel like there’s a sense of control. But I think what is unique about this sort of misinformation happening in the modern era is the immense connectivity that we have between us that makes it possible for misinformation to spread so quickly. I can hear a rumor from someone all the way around the world in less than a second.

Darragh Worland:
Were there missteps early on in how the CDC communicated about the virus with the public?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
One way to put this is, I don’t know a single person who has tried to communicate during this pandemic who has not made a misstep at some point, and no one is immune to that. I think we’ve all been operating under limited information, every single step along this way. I have made missteps, my colleagues have made missteps, the experts I’ve spoken to have made missteps. And a lot of that was operating with the data that they had at the time.

I think there were certainly some things that the CDC could have done a better job of communicating; What are the expectations we should have for how long this virus might be with us, how quickly it might change, what a vaccine should be ultimately designed to do. Was their guidance on masks at various points too hasty? Was there political pressure? And certainly, the answer is yes to a lot of those things, but I also do want to make sure that we’re not demonizing public health officials at a time like this. It has been so difficult to operate under limited information. And I know there have been really difficult decisions that have had to be made by the FDA, the CDC, experts everywhere.

Darragh Worland:
So, I think unlike a lot of journalists, you have a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology. You have a better understanding that scientific knowledge really evolves and changes over time.

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
Yeah. I think that absolutely is important. It’s a really difficult balance to strike. I think when people are reading the news, especially nowadays, they are flicking through something on a two-inch screen, they are scrolling through Twitter, they want quick soundbites, they want quickly digestible headlines, they want something that is clear, something with a sense of permanence like, “This is going to be able to guide my decision-making today, tomorrow, next week, maybe even next year.” But I think in a time of public crisis, where it is all about gathering accurate information, there does have to be some nuanced understanding of how science typically works.

And there’s a line to take here. I think I do try to communicate as much as I can, “This is what we understand up until this point. Certainly, things could change as we as people change, as we change our behaviors, as our understanding of immunology and virology shifts, as our understanding of what people’s risk tolerance, over time, shifts.” I think the worst thing we can do is gaslight people and say, “We always knew this, or it was always going to be like this.” And just make sure that there’s transparency and humility along the way.

Darragh Worland:
How much do you think President Trump’s initial discussions of things like using bleach and hydroxychloroquine, or the Regeneron therapies sort of confused understanding of the virus and approaches to it?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
I think that was confusing for a lot of people to hear. He was, and really, in many ways, still is, one of the most powerful and influential people in the country. F or a message like that to be broadcast on national television, to be reported in various news outlets, I think it was very confusing. Not only was it sort of confusing to hear that in its own sphere, but then to also hear the pushback to it. I think it may have contributed to how politically charged many aspects of this pandemic have become, because it was like people in or outside of his political party seem to be of one opinion or the other. People were not only dividing along scientific lines, but also political lines. And I think that made the message that much more difficult for people to internalize or interpret or even push back against. It just became a much more emotionally charged situation.

Darragh Worland:
As you said earlier, you’re wary about spreading misinformation by repeating it. How do you decide in a moment like… one of the most powerful people in the world is sharing misinformation, you’re now potentially amplifying it, how do you make that decision?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
What’s interesting is, this example feels to me like one of the easier decisions. I think when reporting on misinformation, one of the first decisions that I always have to make is has this risen to a level of prominence that it really does need to be addressed, to be labeled as misinformation, and then counteracted with the additional nuance, the additional context, the actual facts of the matter, to the extent that we have them. Or, is it little known, and if by repeating it, could we accidentally amplify it? But I think certainly, for someone like the president to be saying something like that, if it is being broadcast on television, if it is being retweeted thousands and thousands of times in a very short period of time, that definitely checks that box.

The next step of that is even writing about the misinformation. You want the reader to remember a truth of the situation, the nuance of the situation, and not the misinformation itself. And so often, those pieces have to be really carefully structured. That communication has to be really careful. You don’t want to sound accusatory for people who might have wondered, “Well, is this true?” The goal is not to make them feel stupid or to make them feel like they’re being siloed or even being othered by the people writing the piece or being quoted in the piece. It’s about saying, “Hey, we hear your concerns. We actually understand why this might have spread, but let’s add some context here and let’s bring this closer to the realm of reality.” And so, oftentimes, to make the true information more memorable, I try and make an information sandwich; start with what is actually true, acknowledge that the misinformation exists, move away from it very quickly, and spend as much page space as I can really trying to focus on what is actually real.

Darragh Worland:
So, data and surveys still show that in spite of the vaccines’ effectiveness, Republicans are much less likely to be vaccinated. How did the debate about a public health issue turn so political?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
I will start this by saying that I have never been a political reporter, and so this does, I think, take me a little bit outside of my area of expertise. But just as someone who has been living through this pandemic, I can speak almost more as a member of the general public, which I do consider myself to be, in many respects. I think this is the kind of thing that seeds itself in conversations. People who were already reading conservative or Republican-leaning outlets, continued to be so. They started to hear consistent messaging. And the information being presented at different outlets became more and more polarized. The forks that were already forking went off in even more divergent directions, and that sort of just amplified itself over time.

And I think once political bent gets applied to something, it’s very hard to un-ring that bell. What I’m hoping is that when people engage in conversations that have been political, there does have to be some acknowledgment, “Some of the messaging has totally gotten messed up here, but can we actually find common ground?” And so, when I recognize that some science has become politically charged in a discussion, I try not to ignore it, but that’s never really where I want my focus to go, and that’s been my personal approach.

Darragh Worland:
I’d still like to ask you if you think science has lost out to partisan politics in this pandemic. Does it feel like that to you, particularly as a scientist?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
I don’t think so. And I think I want to stay optimistic here. For whatever it’s worth, I think it is really worth celebrating how far science has brought us during this pandemic. It has not necessarily always been communicated well, but we would not be where we are if not for the incredible scientific advancements that have been made, the speed at which science actually has been communicated accurately, in many instances. We’ve had hundreds of millions of people get excited about vaccines, we’ve had multiple vaccines come to market in a short period of time. We better understand the virus now, we better understand its evolution, we better understand how to protect ourselves, we have all of these incredible tools.

And I think having that toolkit available to us is all thanks to science and the fact that it could be communicated so quickly and so effectively during this pandemic.

Where we’re starting to hit roadblocks now is actually implementing those tools and getting people to take them up long-term, to not get tired of them, to actually start using them in the first place. And that does feel like this bit of molasses at the very end of that pipeline, but I feel like there is a path forward. And so, if science is butting heads with certain cultural aspects of communication, I do recognize that and I do acknowledge that as an enormous challenge right now, but I think there is a really clear-cut path forward and I would not ever want to admit defeat. Even if we change a single person’s mind in a given day, that’s still one more person than was buying in the day before.

Darragh Worland:
Throughout the pandemic, journalists have had to accurately represent some pretty specialized and complicated scientific concepts and ideas. And from where you sit, what was some of the best coverage you’ve seen? Conversely, what were some of the worst or most troublesome trends in pandemic coverage that you saw?

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
Certainly, a lot of journalists have gotten a lot of things right. I’m so impressed with my colleagues, both at The Atlantic and outside The Atlantic, who have learned so much about evolutionary virology, immunology, vaccinology, epidemiology, all of these “ologies” that they weren’t necessarily familiar with before, and written about them beautifully with nuance. And even tied really disparate fields together, everything from linguistics to biochemistry. I think it takes real skill to be able to do that, especially on very short timescales. I think concepts that would’ve been completely uninteresting to many readers out there two years ago, have suddenly become fascinating. People want to know, “ How long does an antibody stick around in the blood?” “What affects those sorts of dynamics?” People really want to know what literally happens to a virus that gets trapped in a super-effective mask. “Why doesn’t it reach your mouth?” And I think that is really beautiful.

There has been just incredible science communication during this pandemic. I think where sometimes communication gets tough is knowing that there is limited space, knowing that readers won’t have the patience to hear about 400 nuances for a single news item. Certain things maybe have been reported not as carefully or things have been somewhat sensationalized. And one thing that I’m always thinking about is when we put together reports, when we put together stories, are we really amplifying the right voices, are we really selecting the right sources? And I don’t just mean experts. I mean, the people who are on the ground, being affected by this pandemic in various ways, whether they’re actually catching the virus or just feeling the ripple effects of having all of these behavioral measures in place, policy changes that affect them and their families.

Are we paying attention to marginalized communities? Are we paying attention to communities that were already disadvantaged before the pandemic, and for whom inequities have been worsened ever since? It’s very easy to call the same 10 people for every single story on a beat topic, but putting in that extra effort, I think is really, really, really crucial for so many reasons, not just for the scientific community, but for readership, for people to see themselves reflected in these stories. And I think that’s one thing that I am always thinking about when I read other coverage; are we listening to the right people, are we representing communities in the right way, are we doing justice to our readers and the people who aren’t yet our readers but we hope will become our readers?

Darragh Worland:
All right. Well, thank you so much, Katherine. This has really been enlightening, and we appreciate your time today.

Dr. Katherine J. Wu:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Darragh Worland:
Next, we speak to Tony Green, who has written about his firsthand experience with COVID-19. In June 2020, Green and his partner invited six family members to spend the weekend at their home in Dallas. At the time, Green was still referring to the pandemic as a scamdemic, wildly blown out of proportion. But over the course of that weekend, he developed symptoms of COVID-19, that would eventually land him and some of his extended family in the hospital. In all, the virus spread to 14 members of his family and took the lives of two of them. Thanks for joining us to talk about your experience with COVID-19, Tony. I imagine it’s a difficult subject for you and even still quite painful to revisit what happened to you and your family. So, I really appreciate that you’re willing to do that with us and our listeners.

Tony Green:
Well, thank you, Darragh, for having me. And yes, it’s still bitter on the traumatic side to talk about and deal with just still reeling from the whole experience.

Darragh Worland:
I would imagine. So, you’ve written about the fact that you used to refer to the pandemic as a scamdemic. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Tony Green:
Yeah. I’d be happy to. The situation was troubling at the time because we’d endured SARS and the swine flu and a few others. And there was a lot of hype behind them, and yes, there were some injuries, there were some deaths, but it wasn’t to the magnitude, obviously, that we’ve experienced with COVID. And being early on, it just seemed like it was an opportunistic time to go after political rivals and start pointing fingers at one another, and using it to crash the economy.

And there was just a lot of misinformation at the time, and I still believe that there is, but it was just very difficult for me to really wrap my head around something that none of us had experienced with lockdowns and things, with another round of COVID flus or viruses that are coming from foreign countries. It was perplexing, but it almost seemed to me like it was impossible to be this outrageous, obviously, as proven wrong. I don’t want to hear more conspiracy theories and more people citing that something is amiss and that this doesn’t exist. I’m not interested in any of that anymore. This has just taken too much of a toll on everybody’s lives, but just in general, I think that America botched it more than any other country.

Darragh Worland:
Tell me what you mean by that. How did the country botch it? Because I think that could mean so many different things to different people.

Tony Green:
Well, I think the United States government let us down. It seems like every two years or four years, at least, with presidential election, a new captain takes the helm and spins the rudder 180 degrees and overthrows half of the country off into the sea with no representation, and you’re just bobbing up and down. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a liberal or you’re a conservative, it doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat or Republican, because nobody ever works together anymore. Conservatives are saying one thing, the liberals just saying another. All I want is the truth. I don’t give a damn about the politics of this. I just want to know the truth. Is it safe for me to go outside or am I going to die? Am I going to kill somebody else? Then when something that matters such as this, politics be damned, how is it that anybody is supposed to, at that time, believe what you’re saying when it matters the most?

Darragh Worland:
We haven’t had you tell your story yet, and it’s so important. Can you tell us how you got COVID?

Tony Green:
Okay. We had just poked our head out of the ground from the whole lockdown thing. And in Texas, there’s a judge that really wanted to keep things contained and he was extremely thirsty for power to control everything in Dallas County. And then, of course, you’ve got the governor that thinks completely different. And I don’t know how different their politics are with one another, but their sense of leadership was definitely contrasting. So, when you go from these incremental increases, leading up to the weekend of June 12th, Governor Abbott said, “We’re going to increase bar and restaurant capacity from 50 to 75%. Smaller gatherings should be considered a little safer. There’s still some risk involved,” stuff like that.

Well, my partner and I decided that what we wanted to do is we wanted to get together with both our parents and just have a weekend together. Well, we hosted, everybody comes over, we spend the weekend together that Sunday, which would’ve been the 14th, I believe. My parents went back to Oklahoma City, his parents went back to their home, which was also in Dallas, but you’re on lockdown, you’re not seeing each other. The morning of the 14th, I woke up with some chills and some body aches and things, and it was not out of the normal for me. I had some difficulty with sleeping. Then my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, some of their family, they started to feel icky. And the next thing you know, my parents are starting to feel icky.

And I mean, we’re talking within about a 72-hour window. There was a total of 14 people, I believe. But my condition started to improve around June 22nd. On the 24th that evening, I did a face plant on the staircase. It was like I was paralyzed. I woke up on a CT machine at the hospital. The same hospital my father-in-law had been admitted to earlier that day. His mother joined us a couple of days later. It attacked my nervous system, I had a blood clot that was forming in the brain. They were good enough to save my life. I’m grateful for that. But my father-in-law, he lingered as did his mother, and both of them ultimately lost their lives.

Darragh Worland:
And you said you were really close to your father-in-law, in particular, right?

Tony Green:
My best friend. He was one of the best friends I’ve ever had. Closer to a brother-in-law or a brother [inaudible 00:25:11] than a father-in-law because of the age difference. But that’s, I think, why we clicked so well; is because we grew up in the same era and had the same music, had the same interest, had a lot of similar values and principles, way to live, way to treat others.

Darragh Worland:
Can you tell us a little bit more about why it was important for you to go public with your story about having contracted COVID after having believed it was a hoax? Sorry. And did the rest of your family believe it was a hoax? I’m sorry to interrupt you.

Tony Green:
No. Nobody specifically would say one way or the other. That includes my father-in-law. We’re all innocent. I mean, just because you think a certain way, believe a certain way, or skeptical, I guess you could say, of the government medical professionals, what people are saying, just because you’re skeptical doesn’t mean that you deserve to suffer some sort of a catastrophic event. We didn’t do anything out of the normal that other people weren’t doing too, and that’s what bothered me. That’s what I think terrified me the most. Once again, I want to go back to the point where… I mean, I got a lot of really disturbing hate mail out of this. People telling me I’m a murderer, I should kill myself, how do I feel about killing others? You deserve this. Why didn’t you die? Hope you live in pain the rest of your life, all kinds of wonderful emails, which I think anybody that goes public-

Darragh Worland:
That’s unbelievable.

Tony Green:
It’s not. I mean, I’m sure you can imagine. I mean, anytime anybody goes public, or you’re a public figure, you’re going to have your critics. And I just chose not to respond or chose to respond with thanking them for sharing their opinion. I tried not to let it get to me. To an extent, it does, but you get a lot of support emails too and a lot of support phone calls and things like that. But the bottom line is that we were not doing anything out of the normal that other people were not doing. It just happened that our circumstance, the six of us getting together… “Well, you weren’t wearing masks.” We were in the same house with one another. We’re eating at the table with one another. How much safety can you have if you’ve not seen your mother or father in two months and you want to embrace them?

I mean, there was nothing that was reckless about what we were doing, according to what Governor Abbott had said. So, we get together, six of us. And you got just a host of opinions to follow, and you go out and you do something, and there’s a dramatic consequence. Yes, I felt like I needed to follow my sword. I put out there, this is a Trump supporter, this is somebody that’s a little bit more conservative, maybe leaning more right than in the center. And I got to tell you, I’m really big center on most every issue, but I did vote for President Trump. I voted for him both times, even though I felt like he had a hand in the whole misinformation of COVID. That being said, I feel like I wanted to appeal to the people, which seemed to be more on the conservative side that were taking the stronger approach to conspiracy theories.

And I thought, “It’s important for me to let these people know, on this side, that I also voted for Donald Trump.” I shared your views or your beliefs about this, and it bit me in the ass. I knew, doing that, there would be backlash, because, with everything, it’s so polarized. I mean, there are people on the left that they were speculative. I have friends within my circle or people that are within my community that I’m very much in tune with, that are out there doing the exact same thing at the exact same time that we were, that didn’t suffer the consequences that we did. I’m so glad they didn’t. But they were pointing the finger at me and casting aspersions at me because we got sick and because I had voted for Trump.

And let me tell you, if I would’ve said, “I’m a Clinton supporter, I voted for Clinton, yada, yada, yada,” then the conservatives would’ve attacked me to a certain level. There’s just no sense of human decency amongst American people if a political agenda has somehow manifest itself within an event. I regret my decision to have the gathering, the accountability factor that I put myself and my family through. Everybody came on their own accord, they all decided to assume that risk, they weren’t pressured into coming, but we initiated. And we don’t know who brought it. And I have to live with a consequence of an innocent action. And I may have been the one that brought it, somebody else may have brought it to us. The unknown version is probably better than the known.

Darragh Worland:
Before the pandemic, you had felt like the news was really negative and it wasn’t helping your spirits. What are your sources of information within YouTube and social media that you’re consulting? Are they groups of people, are they news sources, are they partisan news sources? I’m just curious to get a better idea.

Tony Green:
I didn’t belong to any special underground sources or private groups on Facebook and things like that. I don’t have time for that kind of stuff, but I’ve got 2,700-plus Facebook friends; a lot of people that follow me, a lot of people that I follow, and then I’ve got connections throughout the country, within my network of friends, family, professional relationships. When you’re hearing from people that don’t know one another, for example, I’ve got professional relationships with people that are around like Cleveland, Berlin, Ohio, I’ve got people that are around Birmingham, Alabama, I’ve got people that are in New York City that are telling me, “No, I’ve not had anybody that’s been infected. I’ve not had anybody within my circle that’s died.

You’d hear some distant, distant, distant story that was not directly linked or connected to your source. And it just seemed like it was overplayed at the time. Now, you go back, and I would almost think it would be challenging to find somebody that has not been directly impacted in America, whether it be a family member themselves, whether it be just having suffered from it, hospitalized from it, or died from it. I think that somehow, by this point, 300-plus million Americans, I think, we’ve all been impacted, in some way, by the virus, beyond financial or lockdowns.

Darragh Worland:
How do you feel about the COVID vaccines?

Tony Green:
I had a lot of anxiety about the vaccine, just like everything else with COVID. Seemed rushed, I mean, people speculating the chips, all this stuff. I don’t know. But I did know that getting injected was something that, at the time, seemed to be untested, it scared me, it bothered me, it angered me. To this moment, as somebody that has got the vaccine, and both vaccines, I did the Pfizer, I did it the day that the FDA approved it. I said, “Okay, I’m just going to go do it.” And I had all this anxiety that built up around filling out the paperwork and all this. I went to a local hospital pharmacy that I knew had Pfizer. Sitting there, filling out all this paperwork, and I had this thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t do this.”

It followed me all the way into the room, where she’s about to jab me with a needle. And she jabbed me with a needle, and it was too late. I was like, “Oh, okay.” At that moment, it felt like 500 pounds of weights just fell off of my shoulders, and it was a moving, very powerful moment. I chose to do that myself. My symptoms were I had a really sore arm, but I think it’s a good thing, and I think it’s an option that’s there that people should seriously consider and remove the politics from it. Don’t blame somebody because you chose, no matter what the outcome is. You made the choice.

Darragh Worland:
What would you now say to someone who doesn’t believe COVID is anything more than the common flu?

Tony Green:
Oh, I don’t have a lot to say to them. I try not to judge somebody because their beliefs, their principles, their values, something might differ than mine. And a spirited debate, I might say, “Oh, you’re nuts. You lost your complete mind.” Something along those lines might even go a little bit darker than that. But in this particular instance, it’s very hard to have such a personal connection when you haven’t been there. I thought that in the earlier stages. It’s dumb of me, it was ignorant of me, but I could have been right. But at this stage, if you believe that this does not exist, you’re being foolish.

Darragh Worland:
And finally, we speak to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy about his efforts to warn the American public about the dangers of health misinformation, and his toolkit designed to help the public navigate their way through a sea of medical fact and fiction. Thanks for joining us today, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
Well, thank you so much for having me today.

Darragh Worland:
So, this past summer, you released a report titled Confronting Health Misinformation that laid out steps the public educators, health professionals, journalists, and tech platforms, and others, can do to stop the spread of misinformation. What led you to issue that report?

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
Oh, dear. I was really concerned about the explosion, really, of health misinformation that we’ve seen in recent years. And it was having a direct impact on the decision-making that people were having to go through with regard to COVID precautions, COVID vaccines, and other issues related to their health. Now, one important thing to note here, which I think it’d be obvious to everyone, is that misinformation, in and of itself, is not new, it’s been around for generations, but something different has happened in recent years, which is that its aided and enabled by technology, in part, because of people who are intentionally trying to distribute and spread misinformation. We’ve seen just an extraordinary increase in the speed and scale and sophistication with which misinformation is spreading, and it’s having real consequences for people’s health.

One thing we’ve just seen recently, for example, in some studies, is that nearly 80% of people, when surveyed, say they either believe one of eight common myths about COVID-19 or think those myths might be true. And these include myths like the vaccine has microchips in it, which it absolutely does not, or the vaccine causes infertility, which it does not. But this just tells us the scale of the problem that we’re dealing with. And again, it has real consequences for people’s decision-making for their health, the health of their families. That’s why I issued this Surgeon General’s Advisory on Health Misinformation in July, to call the country’s attention that the threat of health misinformation and really also called for an all-of-society response, which is what it’s going to take to ultimately address misinformation.

Darragh Worland:
Has there ever been an advisory like this before, that’s not directly about a physical health risk, but that’s about information around health?

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
This is the first Surgeon General’s advisory on this subject or a Surgeon General’s product, in any shape or form, on the subject to health misinformation. But it’s what we need now because we see how critical information is to decision-making when it comes to health. As a doctor, I’ve really believed over the years that everyone has the ability and the right to make decisions for themselves that are best for them, for their families, but I do believe we all have the right to do so with accurate information. And the fact that people don’t have access to accurate information right now, that they’re being misled by misinformation, means they’re being robbed of their freedom to make the decisions that are best for them. And that is not good for anyone, it’s bad for us overall as a country. It means that when you have extraordinary progress and advances from science that translate into therapies and cures, that we’re not always able to get them to people, despite the fact that they may save their lives, because there’s a barrier in the way, and that’s misinformation. So, that’s why this is so incredibly important to address. And again, it’s going to take a serious effort as a country for us to tackle health misinformation, but we can’t afford to wait any longer.

Darragh Worland:
So, what are some of the steps that the report outlines that those institutions should take to combat misinformation? Because the steps are pretty concrete.

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
So, we laid out a number of steps that different sectors can take in our advisory, that we issued in July. And then just last week, in fact, we issued a community toolkit to address health misinformation that provides additional concrete steps that individuals can take, and that organizations can also train their members on, so people can be better at identifying misinformation when it presents, and then ultimately address it. A couple of things that we lay out, for example, for individuals: Number one, you need to be able to recognize misinformation when it presents itself. It’s not always easy, but check for references, for example. If for claims that are being made, you don’t find a reference, that’s a red flag. If you do find a reference, you want to check, “Is that actually a credible reference?” Is it coming from a medical or scientific source or is it just some random article on the internet, which you may or may not be able to trust?

And if you’re not sure in these circumstances, talking to a credible expert like your doctor or another healthcare provider is absolutely essential in those moments before you act on that information, and certainly, before you share it with other people. Now, those are some simple steps that individuals can take. And in our community toolkit, we have a whole series of tools really, that we give people, not just to help understand what’s accurate and not, but also to have conversations with family members, because, so many times, misinformation can present in conversation with family members or in text threads that you may be on with family and friends, and you’ve got to make a decision there, “Do I let misinformation spread like that or do I address it?” How do I do so without hurting my relationship or making things awkward? And so, that’s why we want to provide people tips on how to do that.

But separately, let me just say that, in addition to individuals, we need action from other sectors too. So, we know that doctors and nurses and other healthcare providers can be incredibly powerful here by using their voice to speak on issues related to health and misinformation in the public square, whether that’s speaking at town halls, the community groups, or writing in the paper or going on media, we also know that educators and librarians have such an important role they can play in helping to increase digital health literacy, which is becoming an essential skill in the 21st century. And finally, technology platforms themselves. They have a really important responsibility now to step up, be transparent with the data that they have about how much misinformation is spreading, who it’s affecting, and what solutions actually work to address it.

Today, we’ve seen technology platforms step up to do a little bit more, but they’re not doing nearly enough and they’re not moving nearly quickly enough, given the scale of the problem. So, again, I think they have a moral responsibility to act and act quickly. And again, without all of us acting together here, we’re not going to be able to stem the tide to help misinformation. On the flip side, we do act quickly, I think we can safeguard our health and well-being, and make sure that the benefits of science translate into benefits for health and human life.

Darragh Worland:
I’m glad you brought up the toolkit because one thing I noticed is how you define health misinformation. So, you define health misinformation as false, inaccurate, or misleading, according to the best available evidence at the time. And I thought that was interesting. And I’m sure a lot of thought went into the second part of that definition. So, science-like news is provisional. So, it means that it’s subject to change. And as we learn more, we gather more information or evidence, more will be revealed. Do you think this reality about both science and news has caused some people to become kind of cynical about scientific inquiry and newsgathering because facts appear to change over time?

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
It’s such an important question. And I think it has to do with the fact that we haven’t done a great job as a society bringing people into the scientific process and helping people understand just how scientific dialogue also takes place. So, for example, when people see 10 experts who have different points of view, one takeaway from that might be, “Well, this is the process of science. People deliberate, they discuss, they see evolving data, and then they come to conclusions over time.” But another way of looking at that if you’re not familiar with the scientific method is, “Wow, these people are having to have different opinions, and they’re all supposed to be based on science, so they must not know what they’re talking about.” But we know that the former is actually true because that’s how the scientific process works.

We also know that data and information evolves over time. So, as we do more research, we come to understand more about certain topics, and our conclusions and our recommendations change as we learn more. And when people see that though, they might think, “Well, they told me to do X yesterday and Y tomorrow. Why are they changing their recommendations again? Maybe they don’t know what they’re talking about, or maybe there’s something more sinister, or they’re hiding something from me.” But this is why I think, as a scientific community, what we have to do, where our responsibility lies, is in being as clear and as effective in communication as possible, so people know what we’re thinking, but also understand that process. Now, I say that recognizing though that in a world where information is often consumed in isolated soundbites and short tweets, and in the world also, where there are forces out there trying sometimes intentionally to mislead, these things can be easily taken out of context, discussions, and mistrust can be so very easily.
And that, frankly, is one of the challenges we have. And that’s why in the advisory and in the toolkit, one of the things that we emphasize to people is that in this moment, your sources really matter because you’re going to hear a lot of information from a lot of people. We’re not going to stop the sheer volume of information that’s coming at people, but what we can do is help people be more discerning about who they trust and which sources they trust, because, ultimately, being able to talk to your doctor, being able to look to your local department of health, your local hospital or children’s hospital when it comes to kid’s vaccines, these are the places you want to go, in addition to places like the CDC, to understand what the latest science is and what the latest recommendations are.

Darragh Worland:
COVID seemed to be… and the pandemic, like a perfect storm. Mask, no mask. Do I get a booster? Do I not get a booster? Are the vaccines going to be available on time? So, it really did seem like the perfect storm for what you’re describing. And I think that transparency on the part of the media and the part of scientists is so important. How can the media, from your perspective, do a better job of reporting on health issues?

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
One of the challenges we have here is we know that false information actually spreads much, much faster than accurate information on social media. We’ve seen that in studies, and it’s part of the challenge of what we’re dealing with. What we also find is that inaccurate claims are also often delivered in a way that generates a strong emotional response, so they tend to generate anger or they tend to generate fear. And when we feel those emotions, it makes us also more likely to want to share that with other people. Just like when we’re sometimes really angry or scared, we may pick up the phone to call a friend because it feels good to talk to someone, we tend to share information that elicits a strong emotional response. And so, you see that that’s one of the great challenges that we’re facing right now.

But when it comes to media, it’s a broad category we’re talking about here, and many types of media, but they have a very important role they play, and an essential role because we need the media to be effective, to get information to people, help people understand what’s going on. Couple of things I think the media can do is, number one, to make sure that we also don’t over-sensationalize headlines and titles, especially those which either should be more nuanced or preliminary findings. A second thing that we have to do is make sure that we’re providing context for people, so they understand when something is a preliminary finding or it hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet, or it’s not a conclusive, and then there may be evolution thereafter.

And the third thing we can do is to make sure that the images that we use in media are also appropriate to the issue itself. Sometimes we use sensational images and stoke fear or anger within people about an issue, which again can be problematic if that’s, again, not consistent really with the actual substance of the issue. So, we have to be careful about how we carry these headlines, because again, without context, they can mislead people. And we have to remember, people aren’t coming to media and checking in every 20 minutes. Sometimes you only get one shot by giving people both the correct information with all the context, and you got to use that.

Darragh Worland:
Sometimes you only get one shot. I think that is such a good point. And being more responsible about headlines is sort of the takeaway there, knowing that some people are only skimming headlines. And when it comes to a matter of life and death, you really got to think about that carefully.

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
Absolutely. Just one other thing I have to mention in the media front also is the importance of not creating false equivalency between two points of view. Sometimes you may have people with two very different points of view, but one may be based in science and evidence, and the other, it may be a conspiracy theory, but how the media covers these points of view, conveys to people whether or not they have equal credence and credibility. For example, we know that there is no link between the measles vaccine, for example, and autism, yet there was a fraudulent study done years ago, which suggested there might be, that’s been debunked multiple times.

It’s been condemned by the scientific community, which has reaffirmed time and time again, that there’s no link between the measles vaccine and autism. Yet, I have seen coverage which will present these two views as balanced views. That is a disservice to people and to parents and to children who are trying to make decisions for the health and well-being of their children, and want to do so in a way that’s based in science and based in evidence, but they’re misled by that kind of false equivalence. So, we’ve got to be careful about how we frame different points of view, and be careful about giving too much oxygen to points of view that are not based, at all, in fact or science, because it can ultimately mislead people.

Darragh Worland:
What about political polarization? Because this has become a political pandemic and that’s been a big part of what’s prolonged the pandemic as well. So, do you think that political polarization is part of the reason that health misinformation continues to spread so successfully, I mean, beyond the pandemic?

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
Well, I do think the two play off of each other; polarization and misinformation. In fact, we know, from research studies on this topic, that in more polarized environments, it’s actually easier for misinformation to spread because people, again, when they’re pitted against each other or told they should be turning on each other, sometimes a little bit of misinformation that supports that point of view can be more easily absorbed and then shared because, again, keep in mind that sharing misinformation is more likely in an emotionally charged environment, and that’s what polarization does; is it increases and further charges negative emotions like fear and anger and animosity.

So, they do go hand-in-hand, and this is actually why it’s so important that all of us recognize that we are all leaders in our own spheres. You may be a political leader and [inaudible 00:50:42] leader who has millions of people behind you, you may be an influencer on social media and you may have lots of folks who follow and look to you, you may be an athlete or an entertainer who is a role model for folks, you may be somebody whose family really looks to you for guidance and maybe an influencer in that sphere, whatever sphere we influence in, we all have the power and I think the responsibility as well to make sure that we are using that influence for the betterment of humanity.

And that means making sure that we are not only contributing to accurate information going out there, but also making sure that we are not contributing to polarization, to unfounded hatred, if you will, of other people, solely based on differences in opinion, or in policy perspective. Fundamentally, pandemics thrive on division. When we are not able to come together to fight together, to be unified in our approach, then these pandemics stretch on because we’re not able to take the necessary measures, keep ourselves and our community safe. And the truth is that pandemics also remind us that our decisions do impact our other people. The decisions that we make when it comes to COVID, do affect other people. It’s why we have to be unified, it’s why we need our leaders to bring us together, it’s why we need information that’s accurate, reliable, and based on science.

Darragh Worland:
All right. Thank you so much, Dr. Murthy.

Dr. Vivek Murthy:
Well, thank you so much. It was really good to talk to you as well. Thanks for covering.

Darragh Worland:
Is that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit helping educators, students, and the general public become news-literate so they can be active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy. I’m your host, Darragh Worland. Our producer is Mike Webb. Our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Bush. To learn more about the News Literacy Project, go to newslit.org.