Guest post by Sharyl Attkisson. I don’t often host writings of other people on this blog, but I’ll make an exception for Sharyl, whose book, Follow the Science: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails, was released just last Tuesday. She’s had me on her program a couple times to talk about Wikipedia and my projects. The following exclusive excerpt discusses how Wikipedia is used by Big Pharma to push medical propaganda.
The Best Medical Propagandists
Now that you’re armed with some basic strategies for ferreting out good information, here are a few examples of propaganda sources that have proven reliably unreliable. Their sketchy track records teach us that when they “fact-check” or make a claim, it’s worth considering the opposite of what they say as possibly true.
Wikipedia’s health-related content is among the most frequently pushed and accessed in the world. Google consistently ranks Wikipedia pages high in search results and features Wikipedia’s spin on medical topics. Since the popular “digital assistants” Siri and Alexa use Google, and Google refers to Wikipedia, Wikipedia is ubiquitous. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is one of the most prolific purveyors of propaganda and misinformation on matters of science and health. That’s because those writing articles and doing the policing have conflicts of interest. For example, under Wikipedia’s policies, biographies are supposed to be written “responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement” and should “document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects.” But in practice, biographies of people who are off-the-pharmaceutical industry narratives on health issues tend to be viciously slanted in ways that violate Wikipedia’s policies. Yet the behavior goes unpunished and uncorrected. When biographies of controversial health figures, such as the vaccine industry’s Dr. Paul Offit, are filled with glowing accolades, and when they omit serious mention of controversies and missteps, it typically means paid interests or people with strong ideologies are controlling the page. Likewise, Wikipedia’s anonymous agenda editors control pages on health topics that further one-sided and inaccurate information. Pharmaceutical representatives have gotten caught editing Wikipedia topics under pseudonyms to promote their company’s medicine, “debunk” side effects, and attack competitors. When Wikipedia tells you something medical-related is “debunked,” it may well mean the thing is actually true. When Wikipedia tells you somebody is “known for promoting” a “debunked” treatment or idea, take that to mean the treatment or idea may actually work. There are active propaganda efforts to make people think that Wikipedia’s health information is unbiased and wholly reliable. But in practice, under the current model, that can never be the case.
When Wikipedia tells you something medical-related is “debunked,” it may well mean the thing is actually true. When Wikipedia tells you somebody is “known for promoting” a “debunked” treatment or idea, take that to mean the treatment or idea may actually work.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia/Merck’s Dr. Paul Offit, and Baylor College of Medicine Dr. Peter Hotez have been some of the most-quoted and profuse propagandists speaking on the side of pharmaceutical interests. Even as they’ve frequently proven wrong or made false and libelous statements, the media continually returns to dip into the same well of disinformation. When these figures go on the warpath about a topic or against a person, the record teaches us that they may be covering for an uncomfortable truth.
A host of blogs, bloggers, and websites are on a daily mission to disseminate a singular narrative on health questions. Some of these sources use words like “science” and “skeptic” in their titles to try to convey a patina of credibility. You can count on them to sing from the same song sheet and smear those who dissent. They take the industry side in any discussion as if the non-industry views could never, under any circumstances, possibly have merit. They also claim to know the definitive truth on emerging health issues that nobody could have the final word on. Your instincts should tell you that whatever position they’re taking, the opposite may be true. Here are some examples, though some of these propaganda sites have changed their names over time or moved on to the job of spinning on other health topics: Autism News Beat; Autism Science Foundation; HealthPartners.com; Left Brain Right Brain; Media Matters; Respectful Insolence, Retraction Watch, Science Based Medicine, and ScienceBlogs (David Gorski/“Orac”); The Science Post; Sense About Science; SethMnookin; Skepchick; Skeptical Raptor; The Vaccine Blog; Voices for Vaccines; The Vaccine Mom; Popsci; The Skeptic’s Dictionary; The Skeptical OB; and Quackwatch.
Sadly, today, you can put most news and quasi-news sources in the category of those that should not be taken at face value on health matters. It doesn’t mean that every article they publish is wrong or that all their reporters are bad. In fact, many organizations that rank among the worst offenders for health misinformation also have some very good reporters who work there. But those reporters are inevitably drowned out by their publication’s indefensible editorial slant. Don’t assume you are getting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from these frequently biased sources: The Atlantic, CNN, Daily Beast, Daily Kos, Forbes, Fortune, The Hill, Huffington Post, Intelligencer, Mediaite, Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, MSNBC, New York, New York Times, Politico, Salon, Slate, Talking Points Memo, USA Today, Vaxopedia, Vox, or Washington Post.
Academic, journalism, and government bodies; professional associations; nonprofits; “fact-checkers”; and “patient groups” have all been created or co-opted by propagandists on a massive scale, as we’ve discussed. For example, the American Cancer Society receives an undisclosed amount of funding from the very industries that make products that can cause cancer. Patient groups like “Vaccinate Your Family” are arguably fronts for pharmaceutical interests. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) furthers industry propaganda on nearly every health controversy you can name. So do universities, academic groups, and nonprofits that receive funding from special interests to conduct “fact-checks” or produce “media literacy efforts” and create “media resources” that always take the side of the pharmaceutical industry and frequently distribute misinformation. Some of the offenders include the FDA, the CDC, the World Health Organization, Annenberg Public Policy Center, American Heart Association, Credibility Coalition, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, Center for Countering Digital Hate, Columbia University, Duke Reporters’ Lab, Facebook Journalism Project, Facebook’s Lead Stories, FactCheck.org, Google and Google News Initiative, Health Feedback/Science Feedback, Health Policy Watch, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, International Fact Checking Network, Knight Foundation, Medscape, PolitiFact, Poynter, Snopes, the University of Pennsylvania and many other academic institutions, WebMD, Verify or VerifyThis.com, and YouTube, to name but a few. Many of these groups claim to be unbiased, neutral, science-based, or fair—but remember, there’s no law that requires propagandists to describe themselves honestly and accurately. Just because they say they’re something doesn’t make it true.
Order “Follow the Science: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails” anywhere. (Harper Collins, Sept. 3)
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