Let’s Retire Overused Words. First, ‘Misinformation’

December 17, 2024

https://pierrekorymedicalmusings.com/p/we-published-an-op-ed-in-mainstream?

We Published An Op-Ed In Mainstream Media On The Weaponization Of the Term “Misinformation”

Published in RealClear Health, I helped the investigative journalist Mary Beth Pfeiffer make a very public call for authorities to end “misinformation” attacks and increase transparency and oversight.

Pierre Kory, MD, MPA

Dec 17, 2024

Although it is unclear what impact this Op-Ed will have on captured health agency and media behavior, I believe it crystallizes this critical issue and the growing expectations (and past disappointments) of the American populace. Enjoy:

In a seismic political shift, Republicans have laid claim to an issue that Democrats left in the gutter—the declining health of Americans. True, it took a Democrat with a famous name to ask why so many people are chronically ill, disabled and dying younger than in 47 other countries. But the message resonated with the GOP.

We have a proposal in this unfolding milieu. Let’s have a serious, nuanced discussion. Let’s retire labels that have been weaponized against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominated for Health and Human Services Secretary, and many people like him.

Start with discarding threadbare words like “conspiracy theory,” “anti-vax,” and the ever-changing “misinformation.”

These linguistic sleights of hand have been deployed—by government, media and vested interests—to dismiss policy critics and thwart debate. If post-election developments tell us anything, it is that such scorn may no longer work for a population skeptical of government overreach.

Although RFK has been lambasted for months in the press, he just scored a 47 percent approval rating in a CBS poll.

Americans are asking: Is RFK on to something?

Perhaps, as he contends, a 1986 law that all-but absolved vaccine manufacturers from liability has spawned an industry driven more by profit than protection.

Maybe Americans agree with RFK that the FDA, which gets 69 percent of its budget from pharmaceutical companies, is potentially compromised. Maybe Big Pharma, similarly, gets a free pass from the television news media that it generously supports. The U.S. and New Zealand, incidentally, are the only nations on earth that allow “direct-to- consumer” TV ads.

Finally, just maybe there’s a straight line from this unhealthy alliance to the growing list of 80 childhood shots, inevitably approved after cursory industry studies with no placebo controls. The Hepatitis B vaccine trial, for one, monitored the effects on newborns for just five days. Babies are given three doses of this questionably necessary product—intended to prevent a disease spread through sex and drug use.

Pointing out such conflicts and flaws earns critics a label: “anti-vaxxer.”

(See link for article)  Go here for Real Clear Health article

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**Comment**

Yes, please,  ‘Misinformation’ is a fad term that must go.  Further, the very captured agencies overusing this word are the worst purveyors of it!

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Activism, vaccines

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