Respected Globe and Mail health journalist André Picard will be in town for the launch of McGill’s new Pandemic and Emergency Readiness Lab (PERL) on February 3 as part of the panel “Confronting the rising dangers of mis- and disinformation.” He spoke to Health e-News ahead of the launch about how COVID changed health reporting, engaging with science sceptics and combatting the misinformation epidemic.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic change the way you and other health reporters do your job?
COVID changed everything, so it certainly had a big impact on journalism. We overall became more careful. We became a little tougher on public health and more demanding of their messaging and we learned this whole new world of anti-vax.
Speaking of which, last year Canada lost its measles-free status due to outbreaks fuelled by low vaccination rates in certain communities. The US recently rolled back its childhood vaccine schedules. How did we get here?
This is all a ripple effect of what happened during COVID and the not-so-great communication and challenges that happened. We took a lot of things for granted, like public health. That whole preacher approach, ‘We’re going to tell you what’s good and you believe it.’ We live in a more sceptical world and people have a lot of reason to be sceptical. They’ve been failed in many ways by many institutions. The failure was not to listen to the ripple that was coming, that people were more sceptical and angrier. That’s the underlying part and it’s gained momentum. This is ultimately a crisis of trust. People have lost trust in institutions and in expertise, the things that really hold society together.
How do we get that trust back?
You know what they say about trust: it’s really easy to lose and very difficult to get back. It’s going to take a long, long time and I don’t think there’s any obvious route. The big one for me is that you have to interact. For the longest time, public health would refuse to answer those critiques because they don’t want to give those people credibility. But you have to interact and you have to recognize that they are legitimate concerns.
People who are not vaccinating their kids are not stupid, they’re not evil. They love their children. They’re doing it because they’re convinced it’s the right thing to do. It’s really hard to message that group. There are false narratives, but where do they come from? Public health has to fight back and realize why these groups are so successful: because they communicate better.
What role can universities and their researchers, including through institutions like PERL, play in rebuilding trust and helping tamp down mis- and disinformation?
They have to learn how to talk to the public. They have to be much more forceful in their messaging. Take the example of the false claim that Tylenol causes autism if pregnant mums take it. The response came, but it came 48 hours later. Too late, you’re already cooked. You’ve got to respond within 15 seconds. This is the modern world. Just come out and say: “Tylenol does not cause autism.” You have to communicate it in a forceful way because somebody else is already doing it with the same evidence as you, they’re just twisting it.
This misinformation epidemic is very harmful – I don’t think we can overstate it. It’s bad for our health collectively and individually, it’s bad for the planet, because they’re attacking climate change, it’s bad for democracy, as we’re seeing. Ultimately, I think this epidemic of disinformation is going to kill more people than COVID did.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
PERL Launch Event: Health Crises in an Era of Autocracy, Disinformation, and Shifting Geopolitical Risks, February 3. Please note: the in-person event is now at capacity, but you are invited to tune in to the livestream on YouTube.
Related:
PERL Launch: In conversation with leading US epidemiologist Michael Osterholm
