Suspicious studies stimulate media misinformation about “Corona” on social media
Discussions on social media are raging on the impact of studies with dubious methodology and false conclusions about Covid-19, giving scientific credibility to the current skeptical of the efficacy of vaccines, while public health suffers from the consequences of media misinformation.
Studies on the Corona virus are now being discussed outside the medical circle and are widely shared, and it is not enough to withdraw them from circulation to calm the atmosphere after the excitement and confusion it raises on the Internet.
Emerson Brooking, a resident researcher at the Washington-based Digital Forensic Research Lab, which specializes in monitoring and analyzing disinformation, explained that these problematic studies "poured fuel on the fire" in the ongoing discussions on social networks, between followers of conspiracy theorists and skeptics about the seriousness of the epidemic.
These studies "often generate a lot of traffic on the Internet ... and then false articles" relay their findings on other platforms, said the researcher at the Atlantic Council's lab.
This media misinformation is particularly dangerous at a time when vaccination campaigns are slowing down, especially in the United States, and while the American health authorities continue to emphasize that the largest part of the recent deaths recorded related to the epidemic are among citizens who did not receive the vaccine.
And the medical magazine “Vaccines” published in late June 2021 a study on the advantages and risks of vaccination against Covid-19, approved by a scientific reading committee, and included frightening conclusions that the vaccine causes the death of two people in exchange for protecting three from the virus.
Two days after the study was released, scientist Robert Mallon, who criticizes vaccines against Covid-19, transmitted the conclusions of the study in a tweet that achieved thousands of shares.
American conservative political commentator Liz Wheeler presented the study and encouraged reading these "informed scientific recommendations" in a video that has garnered more than 250,000 views on Facebook.
But in July, the medical journal withdrew the study due to "several errors that materially distort the interpretation of its conclusions".
Following the study's approval, at least four members of the paper's scientific committee, including Katie Ewer, associate professor at Oxford University's Jenner Institute in England, resigned.
The well-known immunologist explained, “It was worth noting that this study would have a major impact,” adding that “the inability of any of the committee members to monitor any problems is very worrying, especially for a magazine specialized in vaccines.”
And if Robert Malone's tweet was deleted, Liz Wheeler's video is still available on Facebook.
Similar examples of negligence in the publication of scientific studies can be found in well-known journals.
In June 2020, the magazines "The Lancet", "The New England Journal of Medicine" and "Annals of Internal Medicine", which are considered scientific references, announced the withdrawal of medical studies published on their websites, two of them related to the use of chloroquine to treat people with Covid-19 and take The third is the ineffectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of the Corona virus.
Maimona Majumder, an epidemiologist and statistician at the Harvard Medical Institute, pointed out that scientific research studies are receiving “unprecedented interest,” considering that health experts should better explain their work to the uninformed public.
She said that "all the studies that were developed and shared extensively during the epidemic were not always scientifically solid," considering this "very worrying" because these studies that lack scientific methodology "affect individuals' choices", specifically those "related to vaccination."
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