Flawed scientific papers fueling Covid-19 misinformation

Issued on: 30/07/2021 -
Anti-vaccination activists protest in New York City on June 20, 2021 Roy Rochlin GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
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Washington (AFP)

Scientific studies with poor methodology and inaccurate findings are exacerbating a Covid-19 misinformation crisis that is discouraging vaccination and putting lives at risk.

The intense public interest in the pandemic and divisive debate in the United States over how to address it facilitates the spread of faulty research papers online, including by vaccine opponents. And even if a study is retracted, it is too late.

"Once the paper is published, the damage is irrevocable," said Emerson Brooking, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which focuses on identifying and exposing disinformation.

Flawed papers "have been fuel to the fire for Covid-19 skeptics and conspiracy theorists. They are frequently the subject of viral online activity. Their findings are further filtered through salacious and misleading articles from fringe websites," Brooking told AFP.

Inaccurate information about vaccines is especially dangerous at a time when uptake of the shots has slowed in the United States, where health officials say almost all recent Covid-19 deaths occurred among those who were not immunized.

- 'Shock your socks off' -

Medical journal Vaccines published a peer-reviewed paper in late June titled "The Safety of Covid-19 vaccinations -- we should rethink the policy." It concluded that Covid-19 shots were causing two people to die for every three they saved -- findings that quickly spread on social media.

A tweet from scientist and Covid-19 vaccine critic Robert Malone summarizing the paper garnered thousands of retweets. A video in which conservative pundit Liz Wheeler discussed the study -- which she said "will shock your socks off" -- has been viewed more than 250,000 times on Facebook.

But Vaccines then retracted the paper, saying it contained "several errors that fundamentally affect the interpretation of the findings."

At least four Vaccines board members resigned as a result of the study's publication, including Katie Ewer, an associate professor and senior immunologist at the University of Oxford's Jenner Institute.

"It should have been recognized that this paper would have a big impact," said Ewer, who was not involved in its publication. "That no one at the journal picked up on that... is very worrying, especially for a journal dedicated to vaccines."

Malone's tweet about the paper is no longer available, but Wheeler's video still appeared on Facebook weeks later.

The Gateway Pundit, a website that frequently publishes inaccurate claims, reported earlier in the year that a Stanford University study found mask wearing, which US health authorities recommended to help slow the spread of Covid-19, to be "ineffective" and harmful.

- 'Do a better job' -

The study -- "Facemasks in the Covid-19 era: A health hypothesis" -- was subsequently retracted by the journal Medical Hypotheses, which said it selectively cited published papers and included "unverified" data.

The Gateway Pundit's article -- which has been shared tens of thousands of times as a link or screenshot on social media -- was updated to say the study's author was unaffiliated with Stanford, but it failed to mention the retraction.

Some of the biggest scientific journals, including The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, have retracted papers related to the coronavirus crisis, and even a limited number of faulty studies can cause extensive damage online.

Scientific papers have been drawn into the public eye in "an unprecedented way," so experts must "do a better job" of explaining their work to a lay audience that may lack the skills to assess them, said Maimuna Majumder, a computational epidemiologist at the Harvard Medical School.

"Not all of the studies that have been produced and widely shared during the pandemic have been scientifically robust," Majumder said.

"This is particularly troubling because poorly-executed studies have proven to be capable of influencing individual-level decision-making during the pandemic, including those pertaining to vaccination."

© 2021 AFP

HERE IS THE MOST RECENT EXAMPLE OF RIGHT WING KNOW NOTHINGS CHALLENGING SCIENCE AS POLITICS





THE RIGHT PRESCRIPTION

Nope, I Won’t Mask Up Again

The science doesn’t support the latest CDC whim. 

by DAVID CATRON

July 30, 2021, 


Last March, I followed the CDC’s advice and got fully vaccinated against COVID-19. I did so more out of a sense of civic duty than any actual fear that I might contract the virus. It was just an easy and scientifically sound way to help slow its spread. Naturally, I was delighted when the CDC finally announced that fully vaccinated people could safely participate in indoor and outdoor activities without wearing inconvenient and clinically useless face masks. Now, the CDC has reversed itself and issued new guidance telling 163.6 million fully vaccinated Americans to put our masks back on. Sorry, no sale.

First, the CDC published no data supporting its bizarre reversal. The Washington Post reports: “In the text of the updated masking guidance, the agency merely cited ‘CDC COVID-19 Response Team, unpublished data, 2021.’” Moreover, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is struggling to produce a plausible explanation. She claimed without evidence on ABC News that “new science” has emerged showing that fully vaccinated people should be masking.

Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) points out that the CDC decision was based on a defective study involving a vaccine that hasn’t been approved in the U.S.:


The “game-changer” data the CDC used for the mask mandate is from a single study from India. The study was rejected in peer review. . . . And just before the new decision was made, the study’s status was mysteriously changed — it no longer listed the study as “rejected after peer review.” The site said it was a “glitch.” Pretty convenient glitch. . . . The “party of science” isn’t listening to science. They never have. This latest mask guidance is proof. But Democrats don’t care. Because this isn’t about public health. It’s about public control.

Crenshaw is right. The Democrats never approved of lifting any of the “temporary” mitigation measures they imposed on us last year, ostensibly to get COVID-19 under control. When the CDC finally acquiesced to public pressure last spring and permitted the vaccinated to return to our normal lives, they immediately revealed themselves as anti-science zealots. We began to hear calls for vaccine passports despite the absence of public enthusiasm. A recent Gallup survey found that majorities oppose such passports for restaurant dining, staying in hotels, and entering the workplace. But Democrats don’t trust us with so much liberty.

After the CDC set the vaccinated free last May, former Obama administration official Kavita K. Patel wrote in The Hill that trusting Americans to follow an honor system on vaccinations was magical thinking: “People are much more likely to lie, especially if they enter a business or establishment with the majority of persons unmasked and they are simply asked to self-report vaccination status.” This provides a valuable insight into the contempt Democrats have for the voters.

Harvard’s Martin Kulldorff and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya explain in the Wall Street Journal how inequitable and dangerous vaccine passports would become.

Vaccine passports are unjust and discriminatory. Most of those endorsing the idea belongs to the laptop class — privileged professionals who worked safely and comfortably at home during the epidemic. Millions of Americans did essential jobs at their usual workplaces and became immune the hard way. Now they would be forced to risk adverse reactions from a vaccine they don’t need. Passports would entice young, low-risk professionals . . . to get the vaccine before older, higher-risk, but less affluent members of society. Many unnecessary deaths would result.

Also, as a practical matter, mandating vaccine passports would inevitably create a black market through which forgeries could easily be purchased. Indeed, they are already available. Second, it isn’t necessary to rely on the honor system. If you have been fully vaccinated, your chances of contracting COVID-19 or the dreaded Delta variant in a restaurant or grocery store are very nearly zero. Even considering the immunocompromised, it isn’t reasonable to impose a passport mandate on the entire country to accommodate 3.6 percent of the population. Consequently, the public should reject vaccine passports and face masks.

All of this brings me back to my refusal to wear a mask that no one who recalls middle school biology believes will protect me. The last time I was in a doctor’s office, I asked if it was really necessary to wear a mask. He took off his own mask and said, “I’ve been vaccinated, and you’ve been vaccinated. You have a higher chance of being struck by lightning than of contracting the virus.” Another physician with whom I cycle from time to time put it a little more coarsely (this is the cleaned-up version): “If you can detect flatulence through your face mask, it won’t protect you from COVID-19, the Delta variant, or any other virus.”


So, I’m not going to wear a mask. If any employee of any retail establishment asks me to put on a mask, I will take my custom elsewhere. If anyone in any public building paid for by my tax dollars tells me to don a mask, I will tell them, “No,” and invite them to call the police if they dislike that response. If anyone bothers me in any place of public accommodation, I will politely tell them to mind their own business and advise them that I myself will call the police if they continue to harass me. I’m not wearing a face mask.


David Catron
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David Catron is a recovering health care consultant and frequent contributor to The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter at @Catronicus.