The Meta Multiverse of Misinformation Madness

Here is why JAMA should be shut down. I want to show you the most ridiculous study ever produced. And it’s all about politics. Here are the results:

Results  The propagation of COVID-19 misinformation was attributed to 52 physicians in 28 different specialties across all regions of the country. General misinformation categories included vaccines, medication, masks, and other (ie, conspiracy theories). Forty-two physicians (80.8%) posted vaccine misinformation, 40 (76.9%) propagated information in more than 1 category, and 20 (38.5%) posted misinformation on 5 or more platforms. Major themes identified included (1) disputing vaccine safety and effectiveness, (2) promoting medical treatments lacking scientific evidence and/or US Food and Drug Administration approval, (3) disputing mask-wearing effectiveness, and (4) other (unsubstantiated claims, eg, virus origin, government lies, and other conspiracy theories).

Fifty-two doctors disputed vaccine safety and effectiveness? Well, they were proven to be right. There are issues with myocarditis, especially in the young. And the effectiveness wore off as people who got the shot still got COVID.

How about different medical treatments? I guess this is for Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. I think the studies lean now more unfavorable to whether they worked or not but there were plenty of studies from other countries showing some effectiveness early on. Some doctors wanted to try them because they were cheap drugs. But they were all stopped because it was off label and this precedent has really hurt our profession. BTW, the gov’t lied about low supplies of these drugs to shame doctors and then they went after their licenses. That was wrong.

Disputiing mask effectiveness? Yeah, these doctors were 100% right on this. Studies with cloth masks and surgical masks showed they did nothing. Even the k95 helped very little.

Virus origin? Yeah, it came from the lab and these docs were right on this.

It’s almost laughable to produce this study when these doctors, and I am not sure who they are, were mostly proven right!

I believe doubling down on misinformation by using misinformation about now proven information is in fact, misinformation.

But the media doesn’t care. Take for example, the USA Today article unscrupulously not investigating about how bad this paper was and vomiting out political talking points. Here is one:

The team defined misinformation as “assertions unsupported by or contradicting US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on COVID-19 prevention and treatment during the period assessed or contradicting the existing state of scientific evidence for any topics not covered by the CDC.”

Interesting. when you look at this from the Chicago Sun Times in February:

New research shows CDC exaggerated the evidence for masks to fight COVID

These findings go to the heart of the case for mask mandates, a policy that generated much resentment and acrimony during the pandemic. They also show that the CDC, which has repeatedly exaggerated the evidence in favor of masks, cannot be trusted as a source of public health information.

It amazes me that the author doesn’t realizes the JAMA article is garbage. It should be a spoof. But the USA Today questions nothing. Instead they say, “Should there be consequences for doctors who spread misinformation?”

How about consequencds for the media or government spreading misinformation?