Fake News in Medicine

By HTH Writer Vishwa Venkatesan

Throughout years past, and especially in the year 2020, medical news has oftentimes found itself to be a polarizing figure. Medical professionals may put out crucial takes on important health-related information, and consequently, the public finds itself divided far too often.

Unfortunately, we the people feel the responsibility to take this information into our own hands, leading to the spread of fake news in medicine. Sometimes fake news might simply be easier to believe or may be what we want to hear, however there is no disputing that misinformation in the medical field has the potential to be incredibly dangerous. With the COVID-19 outbreak affecting us all in different ways this year, a lot of misinformation has spread, so let us dive into one of the biggest examples of fake medical news in recent history as well as how we can educate ourselves in order to believe the undisputed truths in medicine.

Anti-Vaxxing

When discussing fallacies related to medicine, none are more prevalent in my mind than anti-vaxxing. Common beliefs of an anti-vaxxer, one who does not believe in the use of vaccines as beneficial, include the following: vaccines are not as important to disease eradication as hygiene and sanitation are, vaccines can lead to the development of autism in adolescents, and that vaccines themselves cause sickness in the recipient. All of these proclamations and viewpoints have been proven incorrect by numerous medical professionals. The reappearance of previously withheld diseases proves that proper sanitation and hygiene simply cannot eradicate disease forever. Secondly, according to heathline.com, “multiple studies have shown that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism. Most of these studies had large sample sizes.” Vaccines have been proven to not contain autism-causing ingredients, thus undermining the second argument commonly made by anti-vaxxers. Lastly, 2.5 million children are saved from potential disease each year in the U.S. With so many children saved, it would be foolish to believe that vaccines transport harmful viruses into the human body; in fact, in our current day and with our advanced technology, bodily immune responses have never been faced with pathogens transported by vaccines that have caused harm to the human body.

Trust the Professionals

Overall, if one is not as expert in a field, it would be a safe bet to trust someone who is. This does not mean that the pros are accurate 100% of the time, however when the common consensus about a situation is all-encompassing, it is best to take their advice. Misinformation in medicine has spread much more in our contemporary time due to a world more interconnected than ever before, but this also means that there is more trustworthy information accessible than ever in years past. By trusting the medical data and factual statistics accumulated by professionals over countless decades, you can find yourself being the medically responsible person that you should be.