CHEERLEADER HOAX BOOSTED ANTI-VACCINE CONSPIRACIES
PERHAPS one of the most striking recent examples of fake health news is a harrowing viral video that circulated featuring a former US cheerleader.
Desiree Jennings was seemingly left disabled by dystonia – a neurological disorder meaning she has problems talking and could only walk with a twisted, halting gait – weeks after having a routine flu vaccine. The video quickly gained almost four million views and is still on YouTube.
However, numerous health experts have publicly cast doubt on Desiree’s story, arguing that her disorder was either a ‘hoax’, or psychological, rather than linked to the nervous system. But her story was seized upon by anti-vaxxers, as they are known, as an example of the harm immunisations can do.
Other often-repeated claims are that receiving several vaccinations overloads the immune system, and that the jabs contain ‘toxic mercury’.
The truth? A 2015 analysis of the data on the risks of the flu vaccines, published in the Journal Of Preventive Medicine And Hygiene, concluded that the association between the jab and neurological diseases was nothing more than an urban myth. Claims that vaccines are packed with toxic mercury are similarly bogus – there is far more mercury in a tin of tuna.
Chillingly, in August, a study in the American Journal Of Public Health noted a rapid spread of vaccine-related misinformation on Twitter dating back to the 2016 US presidential election. The fake health news was traced to several ‘bots’ accounts – software designed to automatically send out posts containing keywords or content – linked to Russia.
Study co-author Sandra Quinn, from the University of Maryland, said: ‘The speed at which social media spreads such messages is a problem. People don’t stop to check it’s from a credible source.’