How to disrupt America's history of rebranding misinformation as 'science'
(CNN)This fall was supposed to be different. With the new Covid-19 vaccines, the country began to reopen during the summer and vaccine approval for teens (with the hopeful prospect of approval for younger children) promised a return to schools and a return to the pre-pandemic rhythms of life.
But then came the Delta variant, and the vaccine resisters, and the state efforts to ban mask and vaccine mandates -- and suddenly what once felt like the beginning of the end revealed itself to be a momentary pause.
The near-total breakdown of hope for a return to normal has also highlighted and fueled a wave of misinformation about the pandemic and the vaccines designed to end it. From groundless conspiracy theories that the vaccines contain microchips or alter people's DNA to deliberate falsehoods about vaccine deaths and mask side effects, the pandemic misinformation industry is thriving in the US, more than a year and a half after the pandemic began.
Two features of modern American life seem most to blame for the angry distrust and intractable division that surround us: the dissemination machine of social media and the rejection of fact-based sources of information by many on the right, particularly among politicians and media.
We are living in a dangerously unprecedented moment.
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https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/28/opinions/covid-history-of-spreading-medical-misinformation-hemmer/index.html