Authors of biomedical research should provide clear and accurate information to society, whilst working to combat misinformation and disinformation.
Vaccination, hydroxychloroquine, masks and long COVID — all have become politicized, leading to the distortion of medical research during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighting the severe harm that can accrue from medical misinformation and disinformation.
When biomedical researchers publish, we are not merely sharing our work with colleagues; we are broadcasting it into a broader media and social media ecosystem in which our findings can be misused, misapplied, misinterpreted and misrepresented in the service of any number of causes.
Misinformation harms people by directly misinforming them, as we saw with hydroxychloroquine. It also harms people by aiding and abetting bad policy, as we have seen in Florida where antivaccine misinformation drives state policy. Many of us went into this profession to advance human health and wellbeing, but misinformation has the power to turn our own research against us.
Since February 2020, I have split my time between modeling SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology and studying misinformation. Based on this experience, I have eight key suggestions. First, be aware of the information landscape into which you are releasing your work. Consider the debates and controversies to which your work might pertain, the special interests that might pick up on your findings and spin them, and the biases that your...
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