Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies NC ANR Academy for the 21st Century Extension Professional September 9-11, 2020 Ajay K. Sethi, PhD, MHS Associate Professor, Population Health Sciences Faculty Director, Master of Public Health Program University of Wisconsin-Madison Agenda for Part 1 • Presentation (25 minutes): • Examples of public health conspiracies • Factors contributing to the adoption and spread of misinformation • Sources of disinformation • Small groups (30 minutes): Why are some conversations that aim to address misinformation more productive than others? • Reconvene and group discussion (25 minutes) • Break (10 minutes) NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Definitions Misinformation. Incorrect information spread by well- intentioned individuals Disinformation. Incorrect information spread deliberately to others Conspiracy. A secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies On the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, TIME magazine took a closer look at ten of the world's most enduring conspiracy theories. Their list included: 1. The JFK Assassination 2. 9/11 Cover-Up 3. Area 51 and the Aliens 4. Paul is Dead 5. Secret Societies Control the World 6. The Moon Landings Were Faked 7. Jesus and Mary Magdalene 8. Holocaust Revisionism 9. The CIA and AIDS 10. The Reptilian Elite NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Medical Conspiracy Theories and Health Behaviors in the United States (Oliver and Wood, 2014) Neither Heard agree nor Medical conspiracy theory narrative before Agree disagree Disagree The FDA is deliberately preventing the public from getting natural cures 63 37 31 32 for cancer and other diseases because of pressure from drug companies. Health officials know that cell phones cause cancer but are doing nothing to 57 20 40 40 stop it because large corporations won’t let them. The CIA deliberately infected large numbers of African Americans with HIV 32 12 37 51 under the guise of a hepatitis inoculation program. The global dissemination of genetically modified foods by Monsanto Inc is part of a secret program, called Agenda 21, launched by the Rockefeller and 19 12 46 42 Ford foundations to shrink the world’s population. Doctors and the government still want to vaccinate children even though they 69 20 36 44 know these vaccines cause autism and other psychological disorders. Public water fluoridation is really just a secret way for chemical companies to 25 12 41 46 dump the dangerous byproducts of phosphate mines into the environment. NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies JAMA Internal Medicine 2014 174(5) Some COVID-19 Conspiracies Claims without credible evidence Coupled with other agendas • The epidemic is a hoax • COVID-19 is caused by the rollout of 5G • The virus was created in a lab and escaped • COVID is part of a dastardly Gates-led • The virus was created as a biological weapon plot to vaccinate the world’s • The U.S. military imported it into China population • Hydroxychloroquine was not approved by the • COVID-19 is being downplayed or FDA as COVID treatment, but remdesivir was. exaggerated to influence the 2020 • Hospitalization reporting taken over by HHS election from CDC to downplay impact of epidemic. • Plandemic • Medical Deep State Claims with some credible evidence • Reports of data manipulation in Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona. NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Medical Conspiracy Theories and Health Behaviors in the United States (Oliver and Wood, 2014) “Although it is common to disparage adherents of conspiracy theories as a delusional fringe of paranoid cranks, our data suggest that medical conspiracy theories are widely known, broadly endorsed, and highly predictive of many common health behaviors. Rather than viewing medical conspiracism as indicative of a psychopathological condition, we can recognize that most individuals who endorse these narratives are otherwise ‘normal’ and that conspiracism arises from common attribution processes.” NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Are you a conspiracy theorist? Are you capable of conspiratorial thinking? NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Factors contributing to the adoption and spread of misinformation • Mistrust (or, distrust) of people or an organization in a position of authority NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Where does mistrust in health interventions come from? • Failures in public health and medicine • Flint Water Crisis • 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill • Tuskegee Syphilis study • Unintended consequences • Hepatitis C transmission in Egypt • SV40 contaminated polio vaccine in the 1950s • Conspiracy • Wakefield’s conflict of interest and falsified data • Merck’s withholding of information on adverse effects related to Vioxx • Operation Neptune Spear NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Factors contributing to the adoption and spread of misinformation • Mistrust (or, distrust) of people or an organization in a position of authority • Internal conflict with the notion of public health NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies The 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) upheld state's rights to exert police powers to enforce mandatory vaccination laws, thus justifying the restriction of individual freedoms for the collective health of a community. NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Pox: An American History by, Michael Willrich At the turn of the 20th century, there were little to no regulations governing the pharmaceutical industry. Many people were forced to receive the vaccine — most of the time against their will. A 1901 smallpox vaccination raid in New York — when 250 men arrived at a Little Italy tenement house in the middle of the night and set about vaccinating everyone they could find. "There were scenes of policemen holding down men in their night robes while vaccinators began their work on their arms," […] "Inspectors were going room to room looking for children with smallpox. And when they found them, they were literally tearing babes from their mothers' arms to take them to the city pesthouse [which housed smallpox victims.]" "There was one episode in Middlesboro, Ky., where the police and a group of vaccinators went into this African- American section of town, rounded up people outside this home, handcuffed the men and women and vaccinated them at gunpoint," says Willrich. "It's a shocking scene and very much at odds with our daily-held notions of American liberty.” NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Factors contributing to the adoption and spread of misinformation • Mistrust (or, distrust) of people or an organization in a position of authority • Internal conflict with the notion of public health • Fear and loss of control NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Time magazine article covering this research: Conspiracy theories often crop up during times of uncertainty and fear: after terrorist strikes, financial crises, high-profile deaths and natural disasters. Past research suggests that if people feel they don’t have control over a situation, they’ll try to make sense of it and find out what happened. “The sense-making leads them to connect dots that aren’t necessarily connected in reality,” van Prooijen says. […] "But the essence of conspiracy theorizing is, I think, universal in human beings. People have a natural tendency to be suspicious of groups that are powerful and potentially hostile." NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Factors contributing to the adoption and spread of misinformation • Mistrust (or, distrust) of people or an organization in a position of authority • Internal conflict with the notion of public health • Fear and loss of control • Binary thinking and cognitive shortcuts • Confirmation bias NCR Academy 2021 Workshop Exploring the Basis for Public Health Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracies Sources and Perceptions of Facts; Engagement in COVID-19 News Source: Pew Research Center; June 29, 2020 Factors contributing to the adoption and spread of misinformation • Mistrust (or, distrust) of people or an organization in a position of authority • Internal conflict with the notion of public health • Fear and loss of control • Binary thinking and cognitive shortcuts • Confirmation bias • Personal