Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
When you come across something and you're like, I call
it like the woe feeling, like WHOA, I haven't seen that,
like wait war, then that's actually one of your red
flags to check hold on what's the source. And here's
one way in which facebooks a nightmare. Because something from
the New York Times can look very similar to something
from a nonsense website. It makes it difficult to do
not just what I call fact checking, but source checking.
(00:25):
That's Dr Sema Yasmin, an Emmy Award winning journalist, poet,
medical doctor, and author. Dr Yasmin served as an officer
in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, where she investigated disease outbreaks and was
principal investigator on a number of CDC studies. As an author,
Yasmin has a history of tackling some of the most
(00:47):
challenging global crises of our time. Her first book, The
Impatient Doctor Lange, charged the course of the HIV AIDS
pandemic and the life of a scientist who fought to
end the outbreak. Her second book, Debunked, dissects medical myths
and pseudoscience, exploring why we believe what we believe it is.
Therefore no surprise that Dr Yasmin is now a trusted
(01:10):
voice during the pandemic, helping debunked myths and misinformation about
the coronavirus. So when you get that woe feeding like
I don't think anyone's seen this in my circle, what
happens is you have an emotional incentive to share that
information because you get status and hierarchy points. I'm going
to be the one among my circle to share this
(01:31):
new piece of information, so watch out for that. Check
if other sources have also been sharing this piece of news.
It may be legitimate, but it's also a red flag
that it very well may not be. I'm Justin Beck,
founder and CEO of Contact World. I'm here with my
co host Katherine Nelson and Dppava, and over the coming months,
(01:54):
we'll be talking to scientists, researchers, celebrities, experts, anyone who's
been affected by cove it and getting to the bottom
of how we can improve public health together. We may
not have all the answers, but you deserve to understand
what goes on in your neighborhood and the decisions that
will affect you and your family's health. Welcome back everyone
(02:15):
to Contact World Truth and Health. So we're gonna spend
some more time talking about the threat of misinformation today
with a few different takes on it. We've previously talked
about how misinformation threatens vaccination and the anti Vaxtor movement
actually threatens our entire country. Today, dept and Catherine I
wanted to talk about a little more on social media
and since it plays such a huge role in the
(02:37):
lives of so many Americans. So have you guys seen
the social dilemma? Yes? I have. So it makes me
think of Jeff Goldbloom in Jurassic Park. So he says
that the scientists when talking about genetically engineering things, they
spend so much time preoccupied with whether or not they
could do it that they didn't stop to think if
(02:58):
they should do it. And where we are today as
a country, and when we talk about the way that
misinformation spreads, it's amazing to think about what might happen
if the social media networks actually use their power to
change behavior in a way that was good. Imagine if
that was used to improve climate change. I think they
(03:22):
do in some respect. We just don't hear as much
about it. I don't think those stories are clickable as
much people are not sharing the button when somebody's trying
to do something as positive, whereas if it's something inflammatory,
people are more likely to to click on those. And
you know, the funny thing Justin that you mentioned is
I've noticed that even with the cooking videos, which I
(03:43):
love to watch on Facebook, the comments are becoming so toxic.
It's almost to the point where you want to say,
if you don't like something, walk away from it. Why
are you writing something negative about something that someone else
is doing? Right? And Catherine, I mean, what you're bringing
in is very correct, but at the same and what
Justin brought in is about social dilemma. And you know,
there's a reason why that documentary was formed because they
(04:06):
wanted to inform consumers and users about how they're being
persuaded every single day into doing things that may not
be beneficial for them but for the companies that are
operating them. I mean linking to that, there is another
initiative which is run by the same people, which is
known as the Center of Humane Technology, and these guys
(04:28):
regularly host conversations with experts and advocates at the intersection
of social media and mental health, misinformation, also democracy, and
so much more that these guys talk about. So, I
mean there is a movement now in a way where
people really think about these humane aspects of technology social media.
(04:49):
How the same tools that have once been used to misinform,
the same techniques can actually be used for social good
and and that's that's happening right now in real I
M as we speak. It's good to hear that. Deepd
I know, you're really connected in the Silicon Valley and
the Stanford community, etcetera. So I really hope though, that
we have a reckoning as a country. We need to
(05:11):
move towards more social impact and equity because we have
to be honest about you know, how we got here.
And the reason that Facebook and Twitter operate the way
that they do, for instance, is because it's not the
job of a company to save people or help people.
The job of a company traditionally is just to make money.
(05:31):
And we have to disrupt the way that companies operate.
You can make money and make a commitment to advancing
historical inequities. I think it's brewing because there's you know,
social and corporate responsibility. A lot of the larger companies
have those initiatives. You know, if and if it's diversity
(05:52):
inclusion and other programs, how successful they are that remains
to be seen, but it's there, the conversations are brewing.
Is just a mad of time before it catches on
and it's more exposed. And you talk about corporate social responsibility,
which has taken a step further now which is known
as digital social responsibility, which is really you know how
(06:12):
corporate responsibility lies in the digital era, and it actually
spans a lot of areas like socio economic, technological environment
and when designing for systems, when designing for technology, are
they looking into some simple fact like privacy by design?
All of these things are also part of digital responsibility,
(06:34):
not just what we talk about in terms of misinformation,
as you say, right, also a big charge if we're
talking about COVID nineteen and everything else with this pandemic.
A lot has to deal with our states and our
local governments. They're in a position, I believe, of power
in terms of having the channels where people would believe
(06:57):
if it came from the White House, that it is true, right,
if it's from President Biden, if it's from the Vice President,
it must be accurate. If we set up the channel
so that they disseminate to the lower states or local levels,
then it makes it more likely that people would believe
regardless of whether you're disenfranchised. Most people, I think if
(07:18):
we took a poll right now, if something is said
to be from the White House, they would believe it.
You're absolutely right, because that's part of the reason we're
in the position we're in today is that we lacked
federal coordination on so many things, and there was so
much mins information coming from our leadership that it created
having to say the least, I will say something that's
(07:40):
encouraging about equity. I'm glad to see that they're actually
starting to really disrupt the way they think of vaccine distribution. Now,
we still have a big role to play where we
need to educate the public, especially in ways that they
understand and consume information about vaccines. But I really like
how the Biden administration is now creating ways that they
(08:01):
send vaccines directly to hard hit communities. Specifically, their first
phase is going to the pharmacies and hard hit jurisdictions
that have been adversely affected or disproportionately affected. And now
they've taken that one step further, and they're going directly
to community centers, which are typically very trusted messaging centers
(08:22):
for hard hit populations and local communities. So I think
that we're finally seeing a little bit of innovation at
that level, innovation and also success. I was reading earlier
today that they're averaging about one point five million shots
a day, which means we're on track to meet the
goal of one million coronovirus shots for the first hundred
days of presidency. I mean, to me, that's amazing. I
(08:44):
mean I heard that number and I thought, Okay, we'll
see how that works. But they're really putting their boots
on the ground and and actually make it. It happen
so deeply from misinformation to distress, I guess we switched
lane a little bit, we go to a different story.
What I felt was a heartfelt story about Kemoy Campbell.
Can you tell us a little bit about that interview? Yeah.
(09:05):
Kimoy Campbell is retired to make an distance runner who
competed in various events from eight hundred meters to five
thousand meters and also participated in two thousand and sixteen
Olympics in Brazil and in February two nineteen, he went
into a cardiac arrest while pacing the men's three thousand
(09:26):
meter race at Milrose Games. He just passed out on
the track, and while doctors were unable to determine exactly
what cost his collapse, they concluded that it was most
likely a virus that he had that he never took
care of, and if he pushed his heart rate harder
than one sixty four beats per minute, he ran the
(09:48):
risk of another collapse and also possibly death. And now
during the pandemic, he's trying to really vaughn athletes and
educate athletes on the consequences of not taking enough rest
or not listening to your body. Hi, Keimoy, We're excited
(10:14):
to have you on our show today. So, for what
I know of you and what I've read, you were
a shy boy from a rural region in Jamaica and
from there to becoming an athlete in a distance runner
and then competing in two thousand and sixteen Olympics in Brazil.
Quite an inspiring story, I have to say, So share
(10:36):
with us a little bit about it journey and how
you got there. So I started when I was sixteen
years old, and I started by accident. We had a
feel day at school and my music teacher decided, Hey,
we need some points for our house. Can you go
out there in the five k and run. I didn't
know how much leapt the five k was, so when
(10:59):
I got onto the star art line and I asked
Matt teacher that's starting the race, like, how much laps
it's the five k, and he told me twelve. I
wanted to walk off because I didn't think I could
run twelve laps, But then I ended up doing really well,
finishing third and beating half the track team that was
(11:19):
already training for the sports. So my journey started from there,
and from there I just worked hard and I said
small goals. I would say my first goal was to
become the best thing to make, and then my other
goal was to get their sponsorship to come to college,
and then from college to get a sponsorship to race professionally.
(11:40):
So February nine, two nine Melrose Games. I'm certainly remember
the tape by heart. I do. It's a very scery
time in my life. I would say, definitely changed my
life forever, and I always remember that day, even though
I would have to say I remember part of the day, actually, right,
(12:02):
I mean you collapse shortly after stepping off the track
while pacing during the men's street thousand metres? Right? Do
you remember something about the day itself? So, Um, what
I remember is I got up the morning, I got
on the bus, I was talking to one of my
friends who's also an athlete, and from there on I
don't remember even getting to the track. I don't remember
(12:24):
warming up, I don't remember anything. I don't remember the race.
It's like that they had completely been wiped away. So
do you want to also talk a little bit about
what exactly it was? What were you diagnosed with? So
it was a very hard time because while I was
in the hospital, they had countless doctors from different specialty
(12:44):
trying to look into what could cause it, and at
the time, no one could give me an answer, like
it was insane. The only idea they had was because
I was pretty sick leading up to that race. I
had the flu or something, or remember coughing a lot.
I remember I feel like my muscle had pain and stuff.
(13:06):
And then I was in a road race in Manchester, Connecticut,
and I had to drop up because I couldn't breathe.
I went to see a doctor in Charlotte's Ville, and
they told me, like, they can't differentiate if it's my
lungs or my heart, so I should go see a specialist.
While I was in the hospital, they told me they
(13:28):
think it could have been a virus, and I was
running and training witness virus and it might have traveled
to my heart. So they're thinking that's most likely what
happened because they've seen it happen to other people before.
And this experience was, of course before COVID happened. It
was pretty COVID. What was your reaction to such a
(13:48):
profound consequence of the flu when you initially began dealing
with this, Like, could you imagine this was just a
flu that eventually led to something so serious? It was
kind of strange because when you think of the flu,
you think you get some chicken soup. You lay in bed,
and you sweat the fever out, and then the flu
(14:10):
slowly goes away. For me, I was always a type
of athlete who think running with selve everything. You put
on some clothes, you go run, and you'll be fine.
When they told me that the flu could do this,
the people from there on, I realized the mistake that
I made. I wasn't listening to my body, and sometimes
(14:32):
you really do have to listen to your body because
it knows best. And I've been doing it for years,
running with the flu, running with the flu, so it
could have been years that I was just sending the
virus to my heart and it just slowly eat away
over time. So it was very scary, right, And what
(14:53):
were long term outcomes of this on your illness? Your
health as well as your career. I mean in obviously
I'm not a professional athlete anymore. I really do miss it,
but I would say it has opened my eyes in
many other ways. You don't realize how much freedom you
have until there's something preventive from doing what you want
(15:15):
to do. For instance, like this morning, the alarm of
fire alarm went off. It was a fast alarm, but
at the same time, it kind of opened my mind.
This is the thirtieth floor. The last time I did
two flights of stairs, I hadn't read me right after that,
so now, how am I supposed to climb thirty floors down?
(15:35):
What's going to happen to me? So this kind of
just opened my mind, and then I realized that there
are consequences, right, I mean, just relating to your situation,
which was flu symptoms, Now COOVID and coronavirus. I mean,
it's just even more dangerous as we know it. Do
you have any thoughts to offer to athletes who may
find themselves with a COVID nineteen diagnosis. I think the
(15:59):
best thing he can do if they do find themselves
as rest. If you go out and run while you
have COVID, it's gonna cause problems. I knew an athlete
who did the same thing because she had mild symptoms
and now she has a heart condition. They didn't know
if he had it previously, but now it's showing up.
(16:20):
Yesterday I got a message from her saying she got
shot by her I c D for the first time yesterday.
Your whole life changes. I'm taking anxiety medication right now,
just because I had twelve veried me as last week
Thursday twelve, and every single time I moved I get shot.
(16:41):
It's just this constant back thinking, Oh, yes, you're okay,
you're okay, but this could happen not only at leases.
Regular people don't want to have to deal with that either,
because it's not very nice on another level, you are
retired at twenty eight because of your heart condition, and
the flu gone tributed to it. I mean, it could
have been one of the reasons. Has your experience contributed
(17:04):
to any sort of culture change among athletes and how
they're dealing with the spandemic. Do you see that being
talked about. I really don't. At the beginning, when the
incident happened Obviousterday, I was advocating for hard health and
people knowing CPR because that's what initially saved my life.
But then COVID happened. So I've gone on my Instagram
(17:27):
and I've talked to people about athletes. I've mentioned, hey,
you don't want to end up like me. But at
the same time, this is how they make their money.
They're not thinking about what could happen to them. You're
thinking about how can I get paid, how can I
keep my sponsorship. But I really do try to educate
people about this because they don't really know what the
consequences are for going out and competing with viruses in
(17:50):
near body. The coronavirus pandemic halted sports across the globe
in March, but life sports is gradually resuming with strict
health protocols. Of course, in play is and even though
it's not running. I just want to take your view
on that the Tampa area is hosting Super Bowl and
Raymond James Stadium not only societe for Super Bowl fifty five,
(18:12):
but also a symbol of coronavirus pandemic that has killed
more than four hundred and forty Americans. Close to seventy
players decided not to play the season, and more than
two of three players have tested positive for COVID nineteen
and long term effects of COVID on players like you
were saying, they're not even known to people, you know,
even after they recover, what would happen. What's your take
(18:34):
on that? So I live in Miami, right and people
really don't care here. That's just the bottom line. I've
gotten out and walks, Like before I started having my
readings and stuff, I've been going on walks of the
people I passed isn't wearing a mask, And to me,
(18:56):
that's one of the scariest thing. So I just decided, Hey,
I'm just gonna start wearing two masks because people are
running past your breathing heavily. You don't know if they
have covie. You don't know who out there has it,
and yet these people aren't wearing any masks that are
I know it's gonna be terrible down here, so I'll
(19:16):
probably just stay in my apartment, make sure we are
my math two masks when I'm going out, trying to
be as safe as possible, and then hopefully things come
down after that. Besides the sports itself, has the pandemic
change how you've been able to engage with your own recovery.
I mean in terms of the medical resources being so
(19:38):
tax and over right now, I mean it's been a
little bit tougher because I used to be able to
go in and see my cardiologists. Now sometimes we have televisits.
That's still a great resource. But at the same time,
like if they want to check my blood pressure and
see what's really going on, they can't do that, So
now I have to at at where I got a
(20:01):
heart rate monitor to tell me like posts, then I
have to buy a blood pressure monitor. They're pretty good
about it. Where if they see that I'm really stressing
out about something and I don't feed right, I can't
go in. Recently, as I was in the hospital like
a couple of days ago. I do realize that in
the hospital they're trying your best to prevent people from
(20:24):
catching the virus by limiting the amount of people that
comes in to see you, and I kind of like that.
But at the same time, there is that thing in
the back of your head, like the doctors have seen
other patient the kind of spread thin I heard someone
cough down the hall and all of a sudden, I
started freaking out because I don't really know what's going
(20:44):
on with that person. So, yeah, it's very scary in
a wait and it was it's a good as well.
I mean, at least we are in a waiting there,
but of course the resources are pretty thin right now
for sure. Do you have any last thoughts for your
fellow athletes? I mean you already mentioned quite a few things,
but still, you know, recovering from the situation, your own
(21:07):
situation and whatever you're going through, and what would be
your thoughts and what would you like to give a
message to your fellow athletes at this point in time.
So I would say to them, if you're sick, you
cannot run. If you cannot run, you're not gonna be
able to make money. Your sponsor is gonna cut you anyway,
(21:28):
So the best thing they can do is played safe.
At least you have your health coming out of it.
You don't have to be like me where you're worrying,
you get up to go to the bathroom and you
haven't arithmia. That's not a way of life. It's just terrifying.
So for them, I'll just say be safe. If you're
(21:50):
not feeling well, get it checked out immediately. You saw
what happened to me, so why aren't you taking that
as a precaution to make sure that happened to you.
So what you're saying is choose better against the best.
Came away from the moment you started competing in track.
Your life is all about goals. I mean college scholarship,
(22:11):
the corporate sponsorship, and then Olympics. And I read about
you that you've again used your goals to expectit your
recovery as well. Right, So we are looking forward to
hearing more on you and where you make your name next.
So best of luck and thank you, thank you so much.
What a fascinating and cautionary story. Having lived the reality firsthand,
(22:35):
Chemoy understands the seriousness and gravity of a viral infection
and how it can be a matter of life or death.
I had the fortune of speaking to Dr Yasmin, who
certainly understands how dangerous it can be when the public
(22:58):
won't listen to facts or the stories they're presented, instead
trusting the BS, as she calls it, high seem I
appreciate your time today. So we live in an age
of misinformation. What effect has misinformation played in the trajectory
of the pandemic in the United States? I think, quite literally,
we've seen disease and death perhaps linked to the spread
(23:22):
of misinformation and disinformation, where people have succumbed to conspiracy
theories about the spread, the prevention the transmission of COVID
nineteen and now of course that we are in the
era of COVID vaccines, there are people perhaps either refusing
to are very much on the fence about vaccine. So
I think we're living in both the pandemic but also
(23:42):
a missin phodemic concurrently, and that there's an epidemic of
misinformation and disinformation and it has very significant impacts on
people's health and on public health overall. I think a
lot of people would benefit from a bullshit detection kit
like the one that's in your book Can you tell
us about Viral b Yes, published by our friends at
Johns Hopkins University Press. Yes. So this book is coming
(24:04):
out now in the second year of the pandemic, and
people have been saying, oh, it's such great timing. But
I've been working on this book for the last six years,
and it began as a newspaper column when I was
a reporter at the Dallas Morning News and I was
covering health and science and doing breaking news stories and
feature stories. But at the same time, I would get
lots and lots of questions from people about things about
(24:25):
health and science and weren't necessarily in the news, whether
it was questions about chem trails or if it was
questions about vaccines and autism, whether they should be taking
a cholesterol or in drug staturns e. Cigarettes. So there's
a lot of uncertainty out there, and my book doesn't
always provide an absolutely black and white answer because welcome
(24:46):
to the world that we live in. So really, what
the book is doing is helping people, I hope, become
savvy or in terms of separating good evidence from not
so great evidence and kind of figuring out when it
is that a study count talk about causation versus correlation,
how it is that a study might end up with
Kuyton's leading headlines in newspapers and websites. So the book
(25:09):
tackles more than forty myths and truths about health and science,
everything from Tuskegee experiments and if you can call them
experiments and how those impact our public health now, to
diet sodas and links to Alzheimer's. What do you think
the craziest or most frustrating myth you tackle might be? Gosh,
it's really hard to pick one, because I think there's
(25:30):
something in the book for everyone. And so there's one
chapter about should you eat your baby's placenta after you
have a baby, which may not interest everyone, but certainly
that was the question I got a lot over the years,
because some celebrities were really swearing by it, saying that
they had eaten their placenta after they'd given birth and
it had improved their skin, then made breastfeeding easier, and
(25:53):
cured postpartum depression, all this stuff of which there was
no medical backing, right, And I was just so worried
that people would see their favorite celebs and their favorite
Instagram influences talking about this nonsense and then go and
do it, And of course that's what we saw. And
in the book I talk about this really awful incident,
and there are more out there. But a baby who
becomes very sick has to go to the hospital because
(26:16):
the mom ate the placenta after she delivered the baby,
and there was a bacteria in the placenta which can
sometimes go un missed, which is one of the reasons
why you shouldn't need it. And the doctors were so perplexed,
why was the baby so sick? Why did it need
so much antibiotics? Like where did this infection come from?
And then when the mom said, well, actually I had
my placenta turned into these freeze dried capsules, then it
(26:38):
made sense that she had consumed the bacteria, not gone
sick herself at past the infection onto her newborn. But
I think the interesting thing about that and the other
myths is where did they even come from? And why
do we believe them even when people give us evidence
to the counter, And why is it that we hold
on to particular beliefs about health and science. So the
book really gets to that, like what even is a
(27:00):
act how our facts made. Should we trust the people
who make facts, because that, you know, it starts to
get messy. Sure, you talked about something that's pretty touchy,
and it's kind of relevant for right now, especially as
it comes to vaccine administration in the US. And you
mentioned the Tuskegee experiments. How do we overcome some of
you know, the things that might actually have underlying truths
(27:20):
during the pandemic, and how do we sort of restore
trust in certain populations for vaccination. So what's happening now
is a lot of the onus is being put on
individuals and communities, and we're even hearing these really false
blanket statements that so many Black people are vaccine hesitant,
or so many Indigenous people or Asian people, as if
we are all monolithic, and of course our communities are not.
(27:42):
What I think is happening when people are speaking to
those issues that affect all communities is that there are
particular populations that have been experimented on in recent history.
So Tuskegee, for anyone who's not aware, an experiment a
study conducted by us GO meant doctors and nurses that
went on from nineteen thirty two and only ended in
(28:04):
nineteen seventy two after a whistleblower said, like, this is terrible. Basically,
it was a few hundred poor black sharecroppers in Alabama
who had syphilis and were not told what was wrong
with them. They were told they had bad blood, and
even once a cure for syphilis came along, these men
were not given that cure, so they were left to
suffer so that these US government doctors could understand what
(28:26):
syphilis does to the body. And of course those men
became very sick. You know, eventually syphilis attacks your brain.
They also passed the infection onto their spouses and partners,
and some of their partners had babies born with congenital syphilis.
So I'm reassured the Tuskegee study is coming back up
now because I think just actually a lot of people
haven't come across it, haven't learned it. Many of course have.
(28:49):
But the problem then is just talking about Tuskegee, just
talking about historical precedents for distrust in science, medicine, and
public health, when medical racism is very much a modern problem. Right.
There are studies from just a year to or three
years ago about the magical belief that white medical students
and white doctors hold about black people and black people's health.
(29:09):
So those things are complicated. They combined to give some
communities legitimate reasons to dispress the establishment. So you're asking
about how to build trust, especially in the context of
a pandemic, when science is moving fast and things are
evolving and there's so much information out there. I think
we have to in medicine and public health and in
science have an atonement for past mistakes and past atrocities.
(29:34):
And I'm a journalist as well, and I work a
lot around diversity and inclusion in newsrooms because it's an
issue very close to my heart and that's affected me.
And in recent years we've seen nat Gio, the Los
Angeles Times and one other local paper kind of say,
this is the role that we played in upholding white
supremacy over the last century, over the last decades, and
(29:58):
here's how we covered things like Lynch, and here's how
we may have perpetuated this problem. And that's a good
first step. It's very much the beginning of a process.
But we need to do that in medicine instead of
you know, naming our medical school lecture theaters and our
experiments and even body parts and cells and procedures after
(30:18):
eugenicists and after fascists who happened to be doctors and scientists. Right,
think about John Sims, who is credited with inventing the
speculum and some quite common obstetric and gynecological surgical procedures.
He came to that knowledge by experimenting on enslaved black
women without giving those women anesthesia. That's our history, and
(30:41):
unless we are toned for that, I find it egregious
and naive and ridiculous. We would say to other people,
it's an emergency, roll up your sleeve, get this shot.
You should trust us, And it's like, actually, some people
have reason not to, and so you better build those
relationships and do that work. Acknowledge a tone, collaborate, empower,
and that's how you can start to rebuild trust. I
(31:04):
think those are just such solid points as yet to
be honest about how we got here. How do you
think the prior administration's mismanagement or what many people would
say mismanagement of the pandemic impacted credibility of public health officials?
Oh gosh, we could talk for hours about that, right,
I think they are going to be PhD dissertations and
books on this topic. I even just think about very
(31:25):
a focused way of answering that question is to look
at how that administration impacted the FDA, and I think
there was so much political pressure put on what should
be you know, kind of independent scientific agency that is
supposed to be kind of independent of political pressure. And
what we saw was the President tweeting at the agency's director,
and then we saw rushed, in my opinion, emergency use
(31:49):
authorizations for some treatments. And then we saw those eu
A s, which in my opinion were rushed, be revoked
because you know, there wasn't sufficient evidence at the beginning.
I don't think to issue those theorizations that can do
so much damage, right, that can really hurt, especially when
that same agency is the one that will issue emergency
use authorizations for COVID nineteen vaccines like hello, So that
(32:12):
needs to be rebuilt. And just in terms of the
past administration and misinformation, you know, there was that study
at Cornell University last year with the researchers analyzed thirty
eight million English language articles about COVID nineteen and found
that the single biggest source of misinformation about the pandemic
in the US was Donald Trump, and that has hurt
us that that the misinformation and disinformation was coming from
(32:35):
such a high platform. There's a journalistic conversation to be
had about how much attention was given and how long
the camera stayed on those press conferences where Bleach was
being touted by the then president. So all of that
has really hurt the pandemic response and continues to hurt us.
It's really a tragedy that public health officials lost any
credibility for something that really they were muzzled. A lot
(32:57):
of cases, like the CDC, a lot of information was,
you know, somehow siloed and contained. How do we undo
the damage from the prior administration, It's a process. The
damage is still happening and unfolding. You just think about
how many dozens of public health workers faced death threats,
faced threats of violence, and actually stepped away from their jobs,
either took earlier retirements, or just flat out moved away
(33:20):
from their positions because they were being attacked because either
they were endorsing lock now as they were encouraging people
not to gather to wear masks. That's going to have
a long standing impact. It could work both ways. We
thought we were calling like the Faucti bump last year
in terms of the increased number of applications to medical school,
which is like, oh, amazing, restores your faith in humanity
when you see how badly doctors and frontline workers have
(33:41):
been treated, and yet you see a new generation of
young people being like, I'm going to sign up for that.
Pretty incredible. But to answer your question, it's very much
a process, and it's going to have to be a
really deliberate, thoughtful and careful process. I think in understanding
how the damage was done and not just how we
repair it, but how do we really strength and system
strength and trust, how do we bring disenfranchised communities into
(34:04):
the fold of public health, and how do we teach
science literacy better, because that's one of the things we've
really been grappling with with this pandemic. It's not just
explaining the emerging science of a novel pathogen. One example
is Stots about to early in twenty when he was
saying you don't necessarily need to wear a mask, and
then the next month, I think in late Fairbell March
(34:25):
was saying you do, and he came under attack. One
of the attacks was or the scientists don't know what
they're doing, and he changes his mind, and it was like, okay,
So this is a reminder that for many people they're
not understanding it's part of the scientific process that he
is being a good, credible, legitimate scientists by evaluating the
data and changing his mind and reassessing. So that is
also something that will need to be part of that
(34:45):
process moving forward. Just speculating. I feel like part of
that was also making sure there wasn't a Russian masks
so that they were available in clinical settings. Oh, it was.
There was a whole political context to it too. There
was a shortage there remains a shortage of N ninety
five respirators in the US, so there was political and
cultural context, but there also was he was assessing data
as it was coming in from other countries and therefore
(35:06):
he reassessed and offered new guidence based on that best
available evidence. And that two people seem like bad science
when actually it was science. That is the scientific process. Yeah,
you have to change with the information you have. How
do we separate politics from public health decision making, especially
in conservative jurisdictions because of how politics play out. I
don't think you can completely extricate the politics from it.
(35:28):
I wrote an op ed for The New York Times
early last year kind of reflecting on my time at
the CDC in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and how every
single epidemic that I was deployed to contain or investigate
was political small political, it's bureaucratic. You wouldn't think that
when you arrive anywhere to deal with an outbreak of
flesh eating bacteria, for example, that bureaucracy will limit your
(35:49):
opportunities to stop the spread of this deadly bacteria. But
it really will. There are layers to it. This is
a thing that's been written about and discussed for so
many years, especially after the beginnings of the HIV AIDS pandemic,
and we saw how that was mismanaged in the US,
and how the CDC was muzzled, and how the then
administration kind of really mismanaged that took years to even
really talk about it from the President at the time.
(36:10):
So it's something we're going to have to think about,
not necessarily completely extricating the politics. I just think public
health is inherently political. None of these things happen in
isolation or in a vacuum away from the messy cultural political,
you know, all those circumstances that we live within. I
think it's much more about having systems of accountability, having
equity and diversity within the sciences, within public health. That's
(36:32):
a frustration with sometimes, you know, diversity, inclusion and equity
being talked about as this like buzzword, and it's like, no,
we're talking about it because it has real value. Having
those diverse workforces and diverse perspectives at the table can
really protect us in terms of our public health moving forward. Absolutely,
but basic things should we keep in mind to do
a better job of sharing an understanding health related information?
(36:56):
You know some people as communicators, but like people that
are posting on Facebook, you know, how do we be
more mindful of the information that we share? Facebook such
a nightmare, And quite a few of these social media
platforms are because their algorithms literally incentivized engagement with nonsense
and they know it. They have a lot of work
to do and they've been told what to fix, and
(37:17):
you know, we're just not seeing it. It's almost like
the success from their perspective of the platforms necessitate us
being like emotionally triggered and sharing things that are often inaccurate.
There was a study in two thousand eighteen that came
out of M I. T. And it was a study
about spread of false information and the kind of headlines
generated from that study. If you remember where something like
(37:37):
false information travels faster and farther than the truth. So
they've done this analysis. It was really good but also
made you for a lot of despair because you just think, wait, what,
why do the lies travel farther and faster? Like do
we even have any hope of countering this? But actually,
when you look more, I think the most interesting part
their study was why and what was it about false
information that made it go viral? And I think when
(37:59):
you kind of verse engineering that way, you can look
for red flags like, oh, this is the thing that
often makes something false go viral. Let me look out
for these things. And one or two of those things
I'll quickly talk about. One of them was this notion
of novel information that when you come across something and
you're like I call it like the woe feeling, like WHOA,
I haven't seen that? Like wait what? Then that's actually
(38:20):
one of your red flags to check hold on, what's
the source. And here's one way in which Facebook's a nightmare,
because something from the New York Times can look very
similar to something from a nonsense website. Not say the
New York Times is flawless and perfect, but you know
what I mean, Like, it makes it difficult to do
not just what I call fact checking, but source checking.
So when you get that woe feeling like I don't
think anyone's seen this in my circle, what happens is
(38:43):
you have an emotional incentive to share that information because
you get status and hierarchy points. I'm going to be
the one among my circle to share this new piece
of information, So watch out for that. Check if other
sources have also been sharing this piece of news, it
may be legitimate, but it's also a red flag that
it very well may not be. And the other thing
to bear in mind that these researches and others have
(39:03):
found as well, is like the emotional content of material.
So often the false information, maybe from the anti science
brigade or people who are anti vaccine, it really triggers
emotions of disgust or hate or anger, and those messages
when we've done analyses on Twitter as well, those tweets
that even have words like disgusted. I am so angry.
(39:26):
They're the ones that get shared a lot, so be
mindful of that when you had I think that's just
good life advice. Take a breath and be like, why
why am I feeling this way? And then do it
your due diligence before you like share and you know,
send it to all your WhatsApp family group chairs. So
another one of your books is entitled Muslim Women Are Everything,
and you highlight the amazing accomplishments of Iohan Omar and
(39:50):
Rashida to lead America's first Muslim congresswoman. How did you
feel seeing the picture that Representative Marjorie Taylor Green posted
featuring an assault rifle? Oh? How did I feel? Talking
about emotionally triggering words and visuals? How did I feel?
You know, it's like this thing that happens a lot
(40:10):
now where it's like shock, but not surprise, given what
we know about this particular individual, and given what we
know about the acceptability of certain retoric and islamophobia, So
shock not necessarily surprised, but horror, like, oh my god,
it's just awful. Where do you feel the line should
be drawn between free speech and accountability? There's a line clearly,
(40:33):
it's a very contextual line. And again what worries me
is who is at the table when it comes to
making that decision about No, we are an academic institution,
but the voices and perspectives and lived experiences of the
people at the table who get to say we're okay
with this, we are not okay. This person will face
(40:54):
these consequences of this person wall face none. It's really
important to me that those people are their experiences really
reflect the world, Otherwise you end up with decisions I
think that just perpetuate systems of oppression. So I'm a
scientist and I'm a journalist, and I don't want to
see people muzzled. However, I want there to be really
(41:15):
open and honest discussion about what happens when people in
positions of power, especially when people who have so much
privilege are using that privilege and that platform to say
things that can have a very real and significantly negative
impact on the lives and bodies of millions of people. Yeah,
where the line is, I think it's definitely drawn where
(41:37):
you have a picture of an assault rifle as a U. S.
Congress person targeting your colleagues. So what worries you most
about where we are with the pandemic. Honestly, a variance
concern me, and the speed which variants are involving. Not
that that surprising given what we know about viruses and
especially RNA viruses. The fact that we've seen some vaccine
(41:59):
used being halted in South Africa because the dominant variant
there is impacting the efficacy of the real world effectiveness
of particular vaccine. So that really worries me, especially because
in the US we've turned a corner, thankfully after December
and early jan we're seeing a really really big decrease
in cases and hospitalizations. I have to say, though, a
bit decrease from a really really high pe right, so
(42:22):
it's store high, but that can make you feel like, Okay,
we've got this. Numbers are going down, We're seeing vaccines
rolled out. I think, what are we at, like one
point three million Americans being vaccinated roughly a day kind
of our average, you know, going towards what the President
has said in terms of a one point five million
person target per day. And then I also have this
feeling of dread, like what if. Also, I think, because
(42:45):
we do probably have more variants in the us than
we know, because we're just doing hardly enough genome sequencing.
So that's something that concerns me at the moment. Of course,
I studied the thread of health misinformation and disinformation. That's
always on my mind. It's been on my mind for
years before the pandemic. I'm glad it's something that's being
considered and understood as a public health threat finally, but
(43:05):
in just very real human terms. Right now, I'm very
concerned about variants. Yeah, I'm looking forward to a day
when we have systems that actually provide context from testing, tracing,
and vaccination so we understand them a lot better. I
really enjoyed the conversation, Thank you so much. When did
(43:28):
truth become so subjective? How did truth become so intangible
now that it literally slips through our fingers like water.
Where do we draw the line between free speech and
accountability for propounding blatant falsehoods or deliberately malicious information, especially
(43:48):
when it's to the detriment of our nation and it's people.
How do we hold each other accountable when false information
is actually preferred by so many of us, especially when
false information only serves to divide us more than we
already are. You may not listen to Contact World Truth
and Health to hear what I think, because we're so
(44:08):
fortunate to have people like Dr sema yasmin on our show.
But I'm gonna share with you what I think. If
you're a politician that threatens your colleagues blatantly using a
picture of an assault rifle, you should be criminally prosecuted
for it, not censored, not just taken off of committees.
And know the phrase I was allowed to believe things
(44:30):
that weren't true doesn't get you off the hook regarding
your outlandish conspiracy theories. You're making a mockery of the
United States. Marjorie Taylor Green. If you're an attorney in
citing the followers of your client by proclaiming, let's have
trial by combat, you should be disbarbed permanently from the
(44:50):
practice of law in the United States jurisdictions. You are
not free to deliberately and blatantly threaten our democracy or
its institutions. Rudy Giuliani. And if you're an attorney advancing
knowingly false pleadings in a court of law without probable cause,
as was the case in dozens of instances related to
the election all the way to the Supreme Court. You
(45:13):
should be sanctioned severely. Factually and legally untenable claims threaten
the legitimacy of our courts. They do not advance the
right of free speech. They mock the intent of our forefathers. Attention,
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. Stop pretending your lack of
policing has anything to do with your personal morals or
(45:36):
Facebook's policy on free speech. You and your peers, who
literally influenced the global population every day, should think about
how you can come together and inspire us the way
you've allowed your platforms to divide us for the pure
sake of profit. Congratulations on what you've built, but we're
now pawns at your mercy. Please help us as a
(45:58):
society before missing information spread on your platforms consumes us.
Taking away the insider in chief's pedestal of misinformation was
a step in the right direction, but our planet and
its people are suffering now. If you are spreading misinformation
online about COVID nineteen because your friends published a new meme,
please take a moment to educate yourself. If you don't
(46:21):
believe in what is happening, go to a hospital and
talk to the people who directly suffer from your ignorance.
Thank you, everybody, Thanks for listening to Contact Truth and Health.
We'll see you next time. Listen to Contact World the
podcast on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you
get your podcasts.