Masters of Health Magazine February 2024 | Page 76

By Rob Verkerk PhD, Executive &

Scientific Director, ANH-Intl and ANH-USA

The Topline

·         Trust in governments, mainstream health authorities and mainstream science is at all time low, leading to increasingly desperate attempts to rebuild that trust, including at this month's World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos

·         Ever more information is being branded as mis-, dis- or malinformation (MDM) as authorities clamp down on those who dare to challenge corporate-determined 'truths'. Appointed governmental, academic and media 'authorities' are not only the key arbiters of MDM, they are also frequent disseminators of MDM

·         The past four years have seen a huge crackdown on scientific dissent, originally the driving force behind scientific discovery and innovation, in an attempt to control the narrative and bend our will, and beliefs, to official narratives

·         Rapidly expanding AI technology is not only being used detect and marginalise so-called misinformation, it is now also widely regarded (including by WEF) as a key source, presenting major societal risks

·         Raising awareness of the way information is being controlled is essential, so we can counter the tightening of the information reins, find new and more trusted authorities of health-related information before they're cut too short.

It’s just days since the close of 2024’s World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting. Among the many things that have been turned over by the planet’s self-appointed corporate and geopolitical leaders and billionaires, are ways of navigating a world that the WEF’s own 2023-2024 Global Risks Perception Survey suggests is going to be becoming considerably more stormy and turbulent during the next 2 to 10 years, and not just from a weather perspective.

Take note of the risk that is deemed by the WEF to be the greatest risk over the next two years: misinformation and disinformation.

In the WEF’s own words: “As polarization grows and technological risks remain unchecked ‘truth’ will come under pressure….In response to mis- and disinformation, governments could be increasingly empowered to control information based on what they determine to be “true”. Freedoms relating to the internet, press and access to wider sources of information that are already in decline risk descending into broader repression of information flows across a wider set of countries.”

The perception of what constitutes ‘truth’ and ‘misinformation, disinformation or malinformation’ (MDM) is at the heart of the issue. Both concepts remain elusive because the arbiter of what is true and correct (i.e. not false, whether deliberate or accidental) remains the mainstream scientific and medical establishment. An establishment that itself routinely publishes false information (see  here  and  here).

There are many reasons that have been found to contribute to false information being drip fed to the public, some being deliberate, others unintended. They include author bias, statistical bias and confounding, statistical manipulation of data, use of inappropriate statistical methods, conflicts of interest, ghost writing of research manuscripts by conflicted interests, author conclusions that are inconsistent with the findings, inadequate peer review, not to mention the distortion of research findings by PR machines and the mainstream media for the purpose of benefiting corporate funders and shareholders. Worse than that, journals like the BMJ, that have in recent years tried to do the right thing by increasing transparency in medical science, have found themselves side-lined when challenging social media censorship of articles critical of manipulated medical research.

>>> UNCHR perspective on misinformation and disinformation

>>> Dr Eric Berg censored (shadowbanned) by YouTube for educational videos on intermittent fasting and keto diets 

>>> Dr Joseph Mercola's response to lawsuit against YouTube following censorship of videos (currently under appeal)

During the last 4 years, we have been repeatedly exposed to the phrase “follow the science” by health authorities and the mainstream media (searching “follow the science” on Google brings up no less than 42,800,000 hits). This notion gives the impression that science consistently delivers both truthful information (which is does not; see above) and that even the best quality science is certain and unequivocal. As if it were some kind of magic tool that casts science as either black or white and never any shade of grey, being the ultimate tool with the power to eliminate uncertainty. Accordingly, the scientists who serve in the great scientific institutions are the only capable arbiters of scientific ‘truth’, are infallible, and are also in full agreement with each other over the conclusions from research. A quaint concept perhaps, but nothing short of a pipe dream.

>>> Read ‘Why misinformation bans are misinformed and dangerous’

This hocus pocus is especially rampant when it comes to areas of emerging science. Think lab leak origin of SARS-CoV-2, the effectiveness of masks or covid-19 mass vaccination, the safety of cellphones and wireless technologies, the benefits and risks of statins, SSRIs and many categories of drug, the effectiveness of different modalities of so-called alternative medicine, climate change ‘science’, the environmental impacts of regenerative livestock farming, light or moderate consumption of coffee or alcohol….the list goes on.