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Doubts about vaccines have spread in social media as a disease and false information that "kill people" should be eliminated by companies operating digital platforms, said the head of the Global Alliance for Immunization Gavi.
Speaking at a US-sponsored event on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Gavi CEO Seth Berkley said that there was a strong scientific consensus on the safety of vaccines.
But social media algorithms have favored sensational content over scientific facts, quickly convincing people who had never seen a member of their family die of a preventable disease.
"We have to think of it as a disease, it's a disease," Berkley said. "It's spreading at the speed of light, literally."
WHO says low immunization coverage is the cause of global measles outbreaks, and their numbers are increasing in countries that were previously virtually free of measles, including the United States. .
The misinformation about vaccines, which according to the WHO, would save two million lives each year, was not a problem of free expression and social media companies must disconnect it, has said Berkley.
"I remind people that it kills people," he said.
US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said that complacency, misunderstanding and misinformation are causing a drop in vaccination rates around the world, with tragic results.
"In my country, social media conspiracy groups confuse well-meaning parents and are reluctant to get vaccinated," said Azar.
He rejected any criticism of US President Donald Trump, who had tweeted several times and wrongly about the links between vaccines and autism in the years before his presidency.
"One study indicates that @Autism is out of control – a 78% increase in 10 years.Have to stop giving monstrous vaccines," Trump said in 2012.
Azar said Trump was "extremely firm" in favor of vaccination.
"If you had been paying attention last month, you would know that the President of the United States, President Trump, was very clear and emphatic: get vaccinated, vaccinate your children, vaccines are safe," said Azar.
Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, Theresa Tam, said the health authorities needed to "improve our game", adding that she was working with Twitter, Facebook, Google and other companies of technology.
"You have to go to the trenches … and start committing yourself a lot more personally and emotionally, because people do not understand statistics and data, and if you do that (talking about data), you have lost their . "
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.
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