Misinformation about vaccines is next big pandemic problem, warns UCSF doctor



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A medical trial volunteer receives the Moderna coronavirus vaccine candidate on August 5 in Detroit.

Henry Ford Health System / AFP / Getty Images

Vaccines for the coronavirus are on the way, but the country will likely soon face another major problem: misinformation.

This is the concern of Dr. Bob Wachter, professor and director of the University of California, San Francisco Department of Medicine.

In a Twitter thread Tuesday and in an interview with KGO-TV of San Francisco on Wednesday, Wachter said the United States must develop a strong campaign to tackle vaccine misinformation.

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Wachter said he was particularly concerned about normal illnesses and deaths attributed to vaccines.

“There will be thousands of people who get vaccinated and in a month or two they will have a heart attack, or in a month or two they will have a stroke, or a month or two they will fall with cancer, n ‘will have nothing to do with vaccines, that must be absolutely clear,’ he told KGO.

Wachter said the message that vaccines are safe and effective must be clear and consistent, from the president to local health officials.

“We have to have a really vigorous anti-disinformation campaign and judging by the way we blew him up on masks, that makes me very worried,” he told KGO.

Also read: CDC director warns next three months will be ‘toughest’ in public health history

On Twitter, Wachter said that despite “the current cataclysmic state of Covid (likely to worsen, I fear)” vaccine news “remains overwhelmingly positive.

“Yes, I have concerns, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter,” he said. “We just have to get there.”

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