Flawed scientific papers fueling Covid-19 misinformation

Anti-vaccination activists protest in New York City on June 20, 2021

Scientific studies with poor methodology and inaccurate findings are exacerbating a Covid-19 misinformation crisis that is discouraging vaccination and putting lives at risk.

The intense public interest in the pandemic and divisive debate in the United States over how to address it facilitates the spread of faulty research papers online, including by vaccine opponents. And even if a study is retracted, it is too late.

Flawed papers "have been fuel to the fire for Covid-19 skeptics and conspiracy theorists. They are frequently the subject of viral online activity. Their findings are further filtered through salacious and misleading articles from fringe websites," Brooking told AFP.

- 'Shock your socks off' -

A tweet from scientist and Covid-19 vaccine critic Robert Malone summarizing the paper garnered thousands of retweets. A video in which conservative pundit Liz Wheeler discussed the study -- which she said "will shock your socks off" -- has been viewed more than 250,000 times on Facebook.

At least four Vaccines board members resigned as a result of the study's publication, including Katie Ewer, an associate professor and senior immunologist at the University of Oxford's Jenner Institute. 

Malone's tweet about the paper is no longer available, but Wheeler's video still appeared on Facebook weeks later.

- 'Do a better job' -

The Gateway Pundit's article -- which has been shared tens of thousands of times as a link or screenshot on social media -- was updated to say the study's author was unaffiliated with Stanford, but it failed to mention the retraction.

Scientific papers have been drawn into the public eye in "an unprecedented way," so experts must "do a better job" of explaining their work to a lay audience that may lack the skills to assess them, said Maimuna Majumder, a computational epidemiologist at the Harvard Medical School.

"This is particularly troubling because poorly-executed studies have proven to be capable of influencing individual-level decision-making during the pandemic, including those pertaining to vaccination."

...