Minister Targets Anti-Vaccination Websites – BBC News

Copyright of the image
Jovanmandic

Health and Social Affairs Secretary Matt Hancock wants new legislation for social media companies to remove content promoting false information about vaccines.

He added that the government was working with Internet companies to identify misleading information about injuries, including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).

Artificial intelligence programs could eliminate bad science.

MMR vaccine absorption rates are declining in many countries.

The reason is not clear. Rates declined in the 1990s following the publication of a report linking the MMR to autism, but partly resumed after this research was discredited and belied.

However, the anti-vaccine sentiment on social media has increased in recent years, raising fears of a negative impact.

Mr. Hancock told the BBC's Today program: "We plan to legislate for the duty of care that social media companies have in particular towards the users of their sites – it's about an element. It is important that media companies, for example, tackle problems that promote suicide, self-injury and, of course, terrorism. "

In a statement, Facebook, owner of Instagram, said: "We are working to combat misinformation about vaccines … by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the subject."

The actions to be taken, according to the company, include rejecting advertisements containing incorrect information about vaccines and not displaying deceptive content on hashtag pages.

Serious complications for health

Measles is highly contagious and can lead to serious health complications, including lung and brain damage.

Measles outbreaks have occurred in parts of the United States. Rockland County, New York State has declared a state of emergency in response to the epidemic in the region. Anyone under the age of 18 who has not been vaccinated will be banned from accessing all public places until the expiry of the declaration within 30 days or until the expiration date. she receives the MMR vaccine. Failure to comply with the order will result in a fine and a six-month jail term. In January, officials from the state of Washington announced measures to help areas most affected by the virus.

There were more than 82,500 cases in Europe in 2018 – the highest number in ten years and three times more than in 2017.

Greater Manchester's health chiefs reported a sharp increase in the number of measles cases between January and March 2019, the majority of unvaccinated children.

In England, the proportion of children receiving both doses of MMR vaccine before their fifth birthday has decreased over the last four years to reach 87.2%.

This percentage is lower than that of 95% supposed to provide "collective immunity", the level considered by experts to protect a population against a disease.

Copyright of the image
Scientific photo library

English medical professor Sally Davies believes that anti-vaccination campaigns are damaging and that the issue should be vigorously opposed: "I do not like bad knowledge being passed on to parents – I do not like quackery – I want them to know the truth that vaccines are very safe and have been used for decades. "

Jo Walton was skeptical about vaccinations when his daughter Sarah was to receive her first vaccine. But Sarah contracted measles before the date of injection.

The family did not think about anything until Sarah was 24 years old and discovered a degenerative neurological disorder directly related to the previous measles infection.

Sarah is now bedridden and in need of 24-hour care. Jo has become a dedicated WRD activist: "It annoys me a great deal 14 years after Sarah's diagnosis, and people seem as uninformed about the impact of childhood illness as I it was in 1980. "

But, faced with a flood of claims and counter claims on social media, it is not surprising that some parents are confused.

The question is whether health experts should try to convince them by trying to win this battle rather than trying to remove material that is judged to be harmful and inaccurate.

Win the hearts and minds

Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal, says that there is a danger with what can be perceived as censorship and that, according to her, the focus should be on conquering hearts and spirits.

"What you have is a range of people, some for whom it is obvious to vaccinate their child, others on the other end who will never be convinced, and in the middle, perfectly intelligent people. and sensible who do not really know what and what group of people we should treat with respect and provide them with information.

"Social media can be both a positive thing and a negative thing – clumsy censorship, in my opinion, is not the way to go," she said.

As the chief medical officer explained, the British health system is not an island in terms of spreading viruses.

Social media and infectious diseases are global phenomena.

It is therefore not surprising that the World Health Organization has stated that the anti-vaccine movement is one of the main threats to global health for 2019.