Microscope on medical myths
Social media is awash with medical misinformation. This is Stuff’s response.
In the 19th century, Louis Pasteur confirmedwhat’s now known as ‘‘germ theory’’. Micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites can cause diseases, he showed.
In the 130 years or so since, a huge body of evidence has backed him up. Germ theory is now a fundamental tenet of medicine.
Why then do some people eschew such voluminous evidence and push alternative, unproven and sometimes quite dangerous ideas instead?
Medical misinformation – like almost any other variety of misinformation – is driven by a range of things. Some people don’t trust anything with the slightest whiff of authority to it. Some people seek to profit financially from peddling falsehoods. Others have simply been misled.
Whatever the causes, the spread of medical misinformation appears now to be faster than ever. On social media, falsehoods can spread faster than facts. This presents a worryingly broad risk to the health and wellbeing of people in New Zealand and all around the world.
Last year, Stuff published a fact-checking project to push back against this kind of misinformation in one area of public health: the vaccine against Covid-19. We published more than 50 articles, including 20 animated videos, addressing the half-truths, myths and flat-out lies that were swishing around on socialmedia and in the wider community about the vaccines.
It was the most-viewed body ofwork we published in 2021.
Today, we’re starting the next step in our ongoing commitment to fact-checking journalism.
The Whole Truth – Te Māramatanga explains public health topics in all areas prone tomis information. Once again, our mission is to inform rather than inflame. We will address specific cases of egregious misinformation where we see the need, but more oftenwe’ll be calmly pulling apart the kinds of persistentmyths that cause harm to New Zealanders.
For our launch, we’re covering alcohol consumption, long Covid and MSG (that’s the ingredient commonly associated with takeaway food).
Forthcoming articles will address things such as black mould, step counters and, yes, germ theory denial. We’ll do our best to keep the articles to the point, without insulting anybody’s intelligence.
The project team is supported by a panel of independent experts who are helping us make sure we get things right.
We’re alsomaking an extra effort to translate all of our videos into an additional three languages: te reo Māori, Samoan and Tongan (just click on the subtitles icon at the bottom right of each video to select a language).
We’re pleased once again to have the support of our publishing partners Māori Television and the Pacific Media Network as we try to reach as many people as possible.
It’s a big job, made possible – in part – by funding from NZ On Air’s Public Interest Journalism Fund.
The fund is the subject of controversy for some people, who allege those who receive it are beholden to the current Government in some way.
The rather boring truth is that there is no interference from anyone at NZ on Air or otherwise in relation to this or any other editorial work we do.
The money we’re receiving from the fund for The Whole Truth – TeMāramatanga is used to pay the animators, presenters, translators and the expert advisory panel who work with us.
The journalism is independent and created according to Stuff’s code of ethics. All editorial decisions, from panel appointments to topics we cover, are made by Stuff editors without influence from any external sources.
If you don’t believe any of that, then I’d just ask you to judge us onwhat we publish. Our sole focus is, and always will be, on empowering New Zealanders to better understand the whole truth about the messy, confusing world we live in today. – John Hartevelt, projects director