This op-ed was published in commemoration of International Fact-Checking Day, held April 2 each year to recognize the work of fact-checkers worldwide.

“It’s because of the COVID vaccine … the flu nowadays is persistent and prolonged,” the mother said ruefully as she went on to recount the ordeal of her husband falling sick and then the kids coming down with the viral infection. After inquiring about their health, I asked her why she thinks it’s related to the vaccine.

It was a hot afternoon as we waited for our kids’ school bus to arrive. The visibly tired mother of two sighed and said, “How else do you explain these recurring flus? It wasn’t this bad before the pandemic, was it? You know, there was a WhatsApp forward on how the COVID vaccine has hampered our immunity and innate ability to fight common infections.”

This was March 2023 in Bengaluru, the information technology capital of India. Misinformation like this has the potential to travel further, faster and sometimes deeper than the truth — on some social media platforms, falsehoods are 70% more likely to get shared than accurate news, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). We know that’s true, courtesy the COVID-19 crisis.

However, what most people fail to realize is that health misinformation persists beyond COVID. It’s a huge public health challenge, a pandemic that is far from over. There’s an urgent need to make it a part of the mainstream discourse — just as we have made efforts to combat fake news and manipulated narratives in the political arena.

Writing on the wall

A WHO review — based on 31 reviews that analyzed fake news, misinformation, disinformation and infodemics related to health — found that incorrect interpretations of health information, which increase during outbreaks and disasters, often negatively impact people’s mental health, increase vaccine hesitancy and can delay the provision of healthcare.

Contrary to popular perceptions, health misinformation — information that is false, inaccurate or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time — is not a recent phenomenon. In the late 1990s, an infamous study, later retracted, falsely claimed that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism. Despite the retraction, the claim continued to gain traction and contributed to lower immunization rates for several years.

As a health journalist, I’ve heard heartbreaking stories of patients being lured by “miracle cures” only to find — often too late — that they wasted precious months in their battle against the tumor or blocked arteries. Perhaps the most distressing thing about health misinformation is how it reduces our willingness to seek effective treatment for health conditions that can be cured, if detected and treated in time.

At First Check, a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), readers share health misinformation with us via email or WhatsApp to verify its credibility. We have seen that educated people are not immune to false claims of “miracle cures” for hair loss, diabetes, cancer, weight loss and a whole gamut of health problems. Particularly when it comes to “natural” remedies, people wrongly believe that there can be no harmful side effects.

Threats go beyond social media

Health misinformation is a global public health threat that needs to be addressed. But how? A stimulating study finds that, behaviorally, relying on health professionals or scientists as information sources predicts less susceptibility to health misinformation, whereas social media use is associated with greater susceptibility.

However, it is wrong to assume that social media is the only culprit. Cultural myths and social narratives work in insidious ways to hamper scientific discussions on health-related issues. Vaccine hesitancy is a powerful reminder of how science alone cannot convince the skeptics.

Since our inception in 2019, First Check, a health fact-checking initiative by DataLEADS, has been actively collaborating with doctors, researchers and medical professionals worldwide to counter the spread of health misinformation. We try to facilitate access to easy-to-understand, credible, evidence-based health information.

In our experience, it’s not just about the patients; often, health care professionals also need a nudge to stay vigilant and updated with the latest evidence. They may need help in equipping themselves with technological tools to detect dubious health claims and conspiracy theories.

As human beings, we all need to deal with echo chambers (where ideas that reinforce our worldview become the norm) and confirmation bias (where we find information and commentary that supports our already-held views). Many people who share misinformation are often trying to make sense of conflicting information or seeking answers to honest questions.

This International Fact-Checking Day, let’s pledge to adopt a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to build resilience against health misinformation. Collective, coordinated, concerted effort by government and private institutions, social media platforms, health care professionals, scientists, the media and citizens is the need of the hour.

Let’s turn up the volume on misleading health information and manipulated narratives. Let’s work together to build trust, boost science literacy and foster a culture of fact-checking.

And next time you come across a piece of health misinformation, call it out. Listen with empathy and offer guidance on finding credible sources of health information. As Sydney J. Harris succinctly puts it: “The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.”

We need to get through.