Panellists included Marion Gruber from IAVI, Marco Cavaleri from the European Medicines Agency, Hanna Nohynek from the National Institute for Health and Welfare, and Thomas Waite, the UK’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer. Through rich discussion, the panel underscored the importance of transparency, innovation, and public engagement in fostering vaccine confidence and uptake.

Misinformation and Trust in Vaccination

The conversation opened with Marco Cavaleri, who was reflecting on lessons from COVID-19. “To increase vaccine uptake, we need to rebuild trust,” he stated, adding that misinformation spread rapidly during the pandemic, leaving an “unfortunate, traumatic impact on public perception.” Cavaleri emphasised the role of regulators and public health authorities in maintaining “transparency about scientific data” and advocated engaging directly with citizens through modern communication channels, particularly social media, to counter misinformation.

Echoing this, Thomas Waite observed that while misinformation could be corrected through transparent education, disinformation posed a unique challenge due to its intentionally deceptive nature. “Engaging with disinformation on its terms is counterproductive,” he said, urging a clear communication approach firmly grounded in accurate, science-based information.

Transparency and Data Quality

Transparency emerged as a central pillar, with panellists stressing that open data and easy access to vaccination information play a vital role in public confidence. Hanna Nohynek spoke of Finland’s experience during COVID-19, where adverse events were reported in real time. This allowed the public to “see transparency in action,” building a stronger foundation of trust. Waite highlighted a similar approach in the UK, noting that the UK Health Security Agency’s data dashboard became a heavily used public resource, promoting transparency and providing real-time flu, RSV, and COVID-19 vaccination statistics.

Innovation and Access: Meeting New Vaccine Demands

The global vaccine pipeline is evolving rapidly, with innovations designed to address threats like respiratory diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and climate-related health impacts. Gruber remarked, “We are seeing new infectious diseases entering the northern hemisphere due to climate change, adding urgency to our need for innovative vaccines.” The conversation also spotlighted AMR (antimicrobial resistance), with Gruber discussing the advanced stages of tuberculosis vaccines. “AMR vaccines could be transformative in curbing resistance,” she added.

This innovation surge, however, brings challenges of its own. Waite noted that in the UK, “The immunisation schedule has become significantly more complex.” With the increase in adult vaccinations, including RSV, flu, shingles, and COVID-19, the programme now requires substantial public outreach to explain why vaccination remains crucial at each life stage. Gruber and Nohynek stressed that effective public engagement and education are essential to ensure uptake keeps pace with scientific advancements.

Bridging Health Inequities: Expanding Vaccine Access

Discussing global disparities, Nohynek raised the importance of equitable vaccine access, particularly for low- and middle-income countries. As she explained, the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) has prioritised maternal vaccination for RSV in these regions. However, she pointed out gaps in clinical trials across continents, noting, “The absence of data from Asia, especially given high prematurity rates, underscores the need for global representation in trials.”

Gruber cited Argentina’s success with maternal RSV vaccinations as a promising case study. Argentina’s approach — a blend of government support, accessible vaccination points, and educational outreach — yielded 57% coverage in the first season. “Political will and cross-sector collaboration were key to this success,” she said, adding that lessons from Argentina could be instrumental as RSV vaccines roll out across Africa.

Economic Challenges and Prioritisation

Sibilia Quilici closed the panel by addressing the economic dimension of vaccine rollout. She argued for an economic perspective on immunisation, explaining that “vaccination is not just a health intervention but a key driver of societal and economic growth.” Nohynek highlighted the challenges her institution in Finland faces due to budget cuts, which she described as “counterproductive,” noting that restrictions on funding can hamper efforts to evaluate and introduce new vaccines effectively.

Cavaleri reinforced the need for a streamlined approach, remarking, “We need to integrate the vaccine approval process with recommendation systems to reduce the lag time. Six years from authorisation to patient arms is simply too long.”

The Path Forward: Building Resilient Immunisation Systems

The panel concluded with a unified call for increased transparency, streamlined regulatory frameworks, and sustained investment in vaccination programmes. Waite summarised the vision: “Advances in technology should make it easier for citizens to get vaccinated while service providers adapt to meet the needs of modern lifestyles.” Gruber echoed his sentiment, noting that “infections affect us all,” underscoring the importance of making vaccines accessible across diverse populations.

The panel’s insights ultimately emphasised that immunisation strategies must adapt to sustain progress, integrating public trust, technological advancements, and economic considerations. The panellists agreed that by addressing the challenges head-on, we can ensure vaccines continue to protect and empower communities globally.

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Usually I worry about amplifying misinformation by calling attention to it. But when it comes to misinformation about immigrants—and most recently Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio—it can’t be elevated much more than it already has been by the Republican candidates for Vice President and President and subsequent media coverage of their remarks. As if acknowledging the role politicians can play magnifying misinformation, vice presidential candidate JD Vance told CNN: “I have to create stories so the media pays attention.” In this case, sharing a few facts won’t elevate the misinformation further and might help dispel myths.

Black immigrants make up only 8% of all adult immigrants. Nearly half (47%) of Black immigrants—or about 4% of immigrants overall—are from the Caribbean, while about four in 10 (43%) are from sub-Saharan Africa. Most Black immigrants are U.S. citizens (68%), while one in five (21%) has a valid visa or green card. Just about one in 10 (8%) are likely undocumented. There are about 700,000 Haitian immigrants in the U.S. and by the way, around 100,000 of them work in the health care sector.

Overwhelmingly, as with all waves of immigrants before them, Black immigrants come to the United States to improve their lives (87%) and their children’s life chances (80%). To accomplish that, most are working (76%). In the case of Haiti, of course, some are fleeing chaos and political instability and have been granted Temporary Protected Status.

They face all the challenges immigrants have always faced in the U.S. Half of Black immigrants (56%) say they face discrimination or unfair treatment at work, but Black immigrants can experience the double trouble of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Politicians have long appealed to Americans who feel alienated or left behind and can be made to feel threatened by newcomers. In what social scientists call “limited empirical validation,” one anecdote or two can be used to validate a stereotype even if it is an outlier. We see that most sharply in the claim, based on a few incidents, that immigrants are widely committing murder.

As a KFF Health Misinformation Tracking Poll released today shows, the strategy is particularly effective with the Republican base. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats and substantially more likely than Independents to believe that immigrants are causing violent crime in the U.S. or that they are taking away jobs.

Most adults (80%) have heard the claim that immigrants cause violence. It’s the ultimate example of amplification of misinformation by political figures based on the intentional use of anecdotes. And it creates a dilemma for news coverage of this and similar examples of misinformation perpetrated by political figures: whether to cover it because it’s news and fact check it in the process, knowing that spreads it much further, including causing further rounds of social media attention; or ignore it knowing that then it will remain mostly in the echo chamber where it began.

There’s likely no choice when presidential candidates spread false information but to cover it and correct the lies in the process, but there are choices to be made about how it’s done. Giving free media to misinformation by broadcasting endless clips of candidates repeating falsehoods and misinformation may do more harm than good, even if they are followed by fact checking. Just ask the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio how they feel about it.

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About 1.5 billion people use chatbots, and most live in the United States, India, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. More and more people worldwide will be using chatbots in the future. By 2027, a quarter of businesses will probably use them as their primary way to contact customers. A gain of about $200 million a year is shown by this huge growth. We expect this number to hit $3 billion by the end of this decade, given its current compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 22%.

While chatbots are gaining importance in business and potentially healthcare, there are inherent problems that must be addressed. Ignoring issues in the chatbot can lead to biased or distorted information in chatbot algorithms. Training a chatbot is a challenging task that requires careful consideration and verification of the results. One of the shortcomings that must be overcome when creating a chatbot is the failure to carefully parse out anything that could indicate bias or failure on the part of the programmers to understand their own biases or shortcomings.

I have found with research print on chatbots that they have returned information with alleged articles and URLs that were nonexistent. If I had used them, my article would have contained many mistakes. Verifying any use of AI in medical and healthcare information searches is crucial.

The phone tree was the first chatbot. Customers found it frustrating to navigate through the computer menu to reach the automated customer service model. This model changed into pop-up, live chats on the screen as technology improved and AI, ML, and NLP became smarter. The process of change has kept going.

Although primarily aimed at business, chatbots, such as ChatGPT3, can be used for a variety of purposes, including academic research, personal interest, creative efforts, writing, or marketing. A chatbot can help with computer code, from improving it to writing code in different languages.

ChatGPT3 will allow you to prompt it to rewrite what it has provided to you and “apologize” if it has not met your expectations. Then, it will go on to provide another version of what you were seeking when you are more detailed in your prompt. The more detailed your prompt, the more likely it is that you will receive satisfactory information.

This can go on for many versions of your prompt until you are satisfied. It does not tire of attempting to satisfy your request. You can also request the number of words you wish the answer to your prompt to be in when you receive it.

Chatbots can also assist with identifying errors and generating various types of content. For example, they can summarize a play, book, or story, write a press release, write a lesson plan on a specific topic, develop a marketing plan, outline a research project or paper, and perform many other required productions.

One of the problems with research papers specifically, especially when the individual wants complete URLs for any research cited, is that the material does not exist at that computer address and, in fact, may not exist at all. The chatbot aims to follow the requested prompt, and that’s one of their faults. Chatbots excel at creating fake titles or information for non-existent research articles and advertisements, and without fact-checking, they can deceive instead of providing accurate information.

While trying to please, AI chatbots can create extremely problematic situations. Take, for example, a recent interaction regarding a chatbot and elections. The GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini chatbots were trained on huge amounts of text from the internet and ready to give AI-generated answers. However, they found that the chatbots often gave voters wrong information or told them to go to polling places that did not exist 50% of the time. They also advised voters to stay home and not vote.

Remember, if you’re not using the latest version of the chatbots, they won’t have the most current information. For example, ChatGPT3 does not provide information after 2020, so it will tell you it can’t do that if you want current information. To get current information, you must subscribe to the more current version of it. Of course, ChatGPT3 is free, which is an advantage to those who have to watch their money, but it cannot do it if you need accurate 2024 information.

Too many chatbot answers are made up, and a new tool to discover the false answers was needed. A company called Vectara, which was started by former Google workers, found that chatbots make up facts at least 3% of the time.

Cleanlab is an AI company that started as a part of MIT’s quantum computing lab. They developed a new tool in 2021 that helps people understand the reliability of these models. It found errors in 10 commonly used data sets for teaching machine-learning algorithms. Data scientists may mistakenly believe that all future answers from big language models will be accurate based on a few correct responses.

Another problem, of course, is that AI has made it possible for fake people to be created on the Internet. Trolls and bots make it harder to learn online by misleading and causing skepticism about reliable information and people.

The future of AI has great promise, but it also requires careful consideration and a degree of concern that we may not have attributed to it in the past.

The post Chatbots Can’t Be Trusted, and We Need Tools to Find Fact From Fiction in Them appeared first on Medika Life.

Covid vaccines are 98% percent effective at preventing infection and transmission.

Remember that statement? It was drummed into us as we were locked away. Later, as the efficacy percentages dropped, month to month, our livelihoods and access to basics like foodstuffs and accommodation became dependent on accepting a treatment that many were beginning to suspect wasn’t “as described” on the package insert. If one could be found anywhere.

Now, in 2023, in what can loosely be described as a post-pandemic phase, the lies continue. Despite glaring warnings from people in the know that mRNA can indeed transcribe itself into our DNA, thanks to DNA contamination (intentional or otherwise) of the vaccines that exceeds recognized safety levels by a number of factors, we still persist in the lie. That Covid vaccines are safe.

The world, or at least those who care to research the issue properly, know otherwise, and yet, the entire medical and scientific complex continues to promote mRNA vaccines, encouraging parents to vaccinate children as young as six months.

Can we trust science?

That’s the million dollar question and science seems hell bent on convincing us to the contrary. Little wonder then, that climate change skepticism is on the rise. Why would we trust the same community that propagated a half-truth for the duration of the pandemic and still, pathetically clings to it, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary?

I tend to look at evidence and data when evaluating a claim, and I must admit that in the past I placed a lot of faith in the medical community and science itself. What benefit, to the community, I asked myself, to propagate a lie? It turns out, my base assumption was both flawed and naïve, and for one simple reason. Science no longer exists solely for the purposes of advancing knowledge.

Clinical studies, long seen as the hallmark of evidence-based medicine, can be corrupted and data coerced to produce the desired results. No medical journal or publication escapes this insidious coercion of science. While I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories, it’s when science and politics converge, it’s challenging to determine who is believable. Science must return promptly to its historic mission to explore and publish untainted data.

Disinformation is blamed for increased climate skepticism, but in truth, the root of the blame lies squarely at the door of science. They have misled us, been caught in the lie, and despite this, still persist. It is therefore little wonder that the continuous deluge of news relating to climate change and our impending doom is greeted with growing skepticism.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Science must recognize that its absolute trust has been shattered. How do we believe in the urgencies of public health when we question the source of the information? Science and its advocates must revisit how to regain public confidence.

So is Climate Change real?

Undoubtedly. Our planet is warming. We know the earth is subject to cycles of hot and cold, and we’re headed into a hot one What role we play, if any, in accelerating this process is still largely debatable, and given the length of records we have access to, we can hardly make accurate predictions. 300 years pales in comparison to the planet’s billion year old history. Its been around awhile and undoubtedly will be here after our demise.

Science would you have you believe you are completely responsible for this natural cycle. Our role in speeding up the process is unknown and anyone who can claim to know otherwise is simply selling you snake oil.

What is true however is that we are polluting our natural resources. Plastics are contaminating every corner of the earth and we are endangering our access to clean drinking water. Unlike the occasional heat wave, potable drinking water is key to human survival, so in the end, the argument may be moot.

We won’t be around to see the poles covered in tropical vegetation.

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The new survey is one component of a new KFF program area aimed at identifying and monitoring health misinformation and trust in the United States, placing particular emphasis on communities that are most adversely affected by misinformation, such as people of color, immigrants and rural communities.  Alongside today’s survey findings, KFF will soon release companion survey reports highlighting the extent of health misinformation among Black and Hispanic adults, as well as rural residents. KFF will also soon release a regular “Health Misinformation Monitor,” which will document emerging health misinformation, identify its primary sources, and examine the role that social media and news outlets play in its spread. Sign up for alerts from KFF on this topic. KFF Health News is also expanding its reporting on this topic in conjunction with the new program.    “While many Americans struggle to separate health information fact from fiction, our survey shows that credible sources of information, and messengers, represent an opportunity to break through and help increase trust,” said Irving Washington, senior fellow for misinformation and trust at KFF. “We’ll continue to focus on this opportunity and what type of efforts can make a difference.” The misinformation examined in the survey includes:  Vaccines A third (34%) of adults say the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines have caused thousands of sudden deaths in otherwise healthy people is definitely (10%) or probably (23%) true. Black adults are more likely to believe this false statement than White adults, while Republicans and independents are more likely than Democrats to do so. People with college degrees are less likely than those with a high-school education or less to say this is true. Reproductive health About a third of adults say the false claim that using birth control such as the pill or an IUD makes it harder for most women to get pregnant once they stop using them is “definitely” (5%) or “probably” true (29%). Adults under the age of 65, Republicans, independents, and Black and Hispanic adults are more likely to say this claim is true than their counterparts. Gun violence. When asked about the inaccurate statement that people who have firearms at home are less likely to be killed with a gun, about four in ten (42%) say it is “definitely” (13%) or “probably” (29%) true. Gun owners are more likely than non-gun owners to say that this false claim is definitely or probably true (55% vs. 37%). The survey also reveals how varied people’s beliefs and perceptions are about what constitutes misinformation. For example, when asked to describe specific misinformation related to COVID-19 that they’ve heard, people volunteered statements that were in direct contradiction with one another, including about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and of wearing masks to prevent the virus’ spread. Who People Trust for Health Information The survey also gauges people’s trust in various sources of health information: Doctors. Not surprisingly, people overwhelmingly say that they trust their own doctor’s recommendations – with 93% saying they trust their doctors at least a fair amount. Federal agencies. About two thirds of the public say they have at least a fair amount of trust in the Centers for Disease Control (67%) and the Food and Drug Administration (65%) to make the right recommendations when it comes to health issues. Democrats are more likely than either independents or Republicans to trust the two federal agencies. About half of Republicans say they trust both the CDC (49%) and FDA (54%). Traditional news sources. The largest shares of the public say they would have at least a little trust in health information reported by their local TV news stations (80%), national network news (72%), and their local newspaper (72%). CNN is the most trusted cable news network (58%), with smaller shares trusting MSNBC (52%), Fox News (49%), Newsmax (25%) or One American News Network (22%). Fewer than three in ten adults say they have “a lot” of trust in health information from any of these media sources. Social media sources. About a quarter (24%) of adults say that they use social media at least weekly to find health information or advice, including larger shares of Hispanic and Black adults, and people in low-income households. Of eight specific social media sources, half (52%) would trust information about health issues they saw on YouTube at least a little. Fewer say they would trust health information if they saw it on Facebook (40%), Twitter (29%), Instagram (27%), and other platforms. Fewer than one in ten say they have a lot of trust in health information from any of these social media sources. The survey report examines the sources to which people go to get their news and their susceptibility to misinformation. Less than half (45%) of adults say they have heard one of the five false COVID-19 and vaccine claims and believe it is definitely or probably true. That share rises to 76% of regular Newsmax viewers, and 67% of regular OANN viewers, and 61% of regular Fox News viewers. Similarly, 54% of those who use social media for health information and advice at least weekly say they have heard at least one of the false COVID-19 and vaccine claims and think it is definitely or probably true, compared to 40% of those who don’t use social media for health advice. Designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at KFF, the KFF Health Misinformation Tracking Poll Pilot was conducted May 23-June 12, 2023, online and by telephone among a representative sample of 2,007 U.S. adults. Interviews were conducted in English and in Spanish. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher. Support for this work was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of RWJF. KFF maintains full editorial control over all of its policy analysis, polling, and journalism activities. Read the Survey

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Despite knowing what we know, groups continue to publish on questions that will not necessarily translate toward more meaningful clinical solutions. Recently, a group published another article, following up on a previous article on roughly the same topic, showing yet again that ivermectin does not help COVID-19 (Source). While exploring topics towards finding solutions is essential, especially if they could translate to saved or improved lives, when should we stop asking questions that we have already gathered fairly comprehensive answers to? While the abundance of misinformation necessitates continued public engagement, why not rely on our extensive, already-collected information? Is the extra financial investment worth it?

While such articles are often delayed from when they are submitted to a journal, meaning publications are not necessarily timely when they come out, I hope that fewer and fewer articles investigate such topics moving forward. If we have robust and reproducible findings, there is little need to continue proving it is believable if experts already feel that way. Due to misinformation campaigns, we will not convince everyone that ivermectin, among other “cures,” does not help COVID. We can move forward and emphasize topics that will translate toward greater clinical care improvements versus engaging naysayers who will not be satisfied with our answers, no matter how many ways we provide information.

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