Fears over ‘anti-vaxxer’ campaign

Fears have been raised over how disinformation being spread on social media could dissuade some people from taking the Covid-19 vaccine.

Damian Collins, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, is worried about the rise of information being spread from anti-vaccine campaigners, who claim there will be a ‘vaccine genocide’ and that it will also cause cancer.

Mr Collins says this will result in a “declining trust in the vaccine”, which he says is the quickest way to “get control of the virus”. He raised his concerns with Health Secretary, Matt Hancock in the House of Commons last week.

Mr Collins said: “I raised my concern that anti-vaccine disinformation on social media might dissuade some people from taking it. Recent analysis by researchers at CounterAction found large quantities of anti-vaccine disinformation on Facebook. This included more than 30,000 posts in Germany, which for example compared vaccinations with the Holocaust, claimed there would be a “vaccine genocide” and that the vaccine will cause cancer.

“Their analysis found two million Germans were members of groups sharing such content.

“According to the campaign group Avaaz the top 10 websites spreading health disinformation on Facebook have almost four times as many estimated views as content shared from the websites of the world’s 10 leading health institutions.

“Facebook’s own algorithms are pushing anti-vaxx content over authentic health information. The impact of this is declining trust in the vaccine.”

Kenneth Lamb was the first to receive the vaccine at the William Harvey last week