Pandemic spawns infodemic of mostly fake news — Health Minister

The Covid-19 pandemic has spawned an “infodemic” of unreliable information about vaccines and health, according to the Minister for Health.

Minister Stephen Donnelly made the comments while speaking ahead of the Trust and Truth in Health Research online conference, which he is due to open tomorrow (November 24).

Organised by the Health Research Board (HRB), the conference aims to help people think critically about health claims and make informed decisions about health policy and practice and/or individual health choices.

“There has been an overload of information, a lot of which has been unreliable,” Minister Donnelly said.

“We have also seen examples of this in relation to the use of vaccines and on unproven medicines.”

“This has exposed people and populations to the risk of using health interventions that are harmful or not using those known to be of benefit,” he continued.

“As a result, this conference comes at a crucial point in terms of dispelling myths and ensuring people know how to discern fact from fiction.”

Speakers at the two-day conference include former RTÉ journalist and entrepreneur Mark Little, who on Wednesday (November 25) will discuss the evolution of misinformation over the past decade in the keynote address; and Dr Eileen Culloty, from the Institute for Future Media and Journalism at Dublin City University (DCU), who will on the same day examine Covid-19 conspiracy theories and why anti-vaccine beliefs are more common among the over-65s.

On the opening day, Dr Gillian Murphy of the School of Applied Psychology at University College Cork (UCC), will look at newly emerging intervention methods to reduce the spread and impact of misinformation in her presentation ‘Fake News, False Memories & Fact Checkers: Understanding & Combatting Health Misinformation’; while the Glasgow general practitioner and author Dr Margaret McCartney and Deirdre MacLoughlin, who is a member of the Public and Patient Involvement working group PPI Ignite, will give a joint presentation titled ‘Dare to know — Stakeholder collaboration in finding the truth in conflicting science’.

Commenting on the virtual event, HRB Chief Executive Dr Máiréad O’Driscoll said Covid-19 was a stark reminder of the importance of making health-related decisions based on good evidence.

“Yet still, misinformation abounds, with unreliable health claims thriving in the online environment in particular,” she said.

“Our conference aims to advance critical thinking about health claims and increase people’s ability to assess the trustworthiness of research evidence so researchers, practitioners, policymakers, the public and patients can make informed decisions.”

The event is free and researchers, policymakers, healthcare practitioners, students, patients, and members of the public are welcomed to attend.

For the full programme and list of speakers, visit here.