YouTube Breeding Harmful Scientific Misinformation

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "University of Toronto researchers have uncovered widespread misinformation in videos on YouTube related to vaccination and immunization. In the first-ever study of its kind, they found that over half of the 153 videos analyzed portrayed childhood, HPV, flu and other vaccinations negatively or ambiguously. They also found that videos highly skeptical of vaccinations received more views and better ratings by users than those videos that portray immunizations in a positive light. According to the lead researcher, 'YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination. Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the best scientific evidence at large. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning.' An extract from the Journal of the American Medical Association is available online."

Comments

Re:Big deal

[ILuvRamen]

sorry but you and the story are assuming vaccinations do in fact work when everyone knows they don't work nearly as well as health care people make them sound. 8th grade biology students even know that they only protect against the viruses that existed at the time the vaccine was made which is like at least a half a year out of date so vaccines are pretty pointless. If you had the flu near the end of the flu seasons last year, don't even bother getting a flu shot this year because it's probably the same strain that you're already immune to and THAT is NOT misinformation. Drug manufacturers saying flu vaccine = not catching the flu that season are the ones misinforming. That's just a flat out lie.

concern over vaccinations is not bad science!

[John Sokol]

Almost 1% of the US population is now Autistic (1 in 150 people), Fact!

Many of these children that become autistic show large behavioral changes within days of getting vaccinated, Fact.

As a result many parents believe it was from vaccinations, Fact.

People posting video about this seems fair, and stating "Breeding Harmful Scientific Misinformation" is just plain wrong! Down right infuriating really.

Only some sleazebags would put out deceptive articles that lump these upset parents in with the UFO nuts.

There has been a lot of scientific information pointing to the mercury based preservative Therimosol that was in many vaccinations as a possible cause.

Therimosol has even been link to neurological problems in pets that have been vaccinated. And is the stuff we are legally required to have injected into all of our new borns and small children. WTF!

It's it remarkable to me that any company would put a toxic heavy metal into anything being injected into infants, even after there was some questions about it's safety.

There was one of the largest class action lawsuit ever against the drug companies producing Therimosol based vaccines. But we never hear about it because it was stopped in 2001 by the Patriot Act that prohibits lawsuits against companies that make vaccines! Somehow I just don't think this was purely a coincidence.

Re:Vaccinations

[caldaan]

Ah your link doesn't work but a search on autism and Japan showed that Japan banned the MMR vaccine in 1993 not thermisol. That article said banning MMR did not reduce the incident of autism. I never mentioned MMR, so maybe you should stop spreading FUD.

However how about this link http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4102045 that shows a pattern of not using thermisol in pediatric vaccines and the decline in autism in California?

In either case all I said is to not use vaccines with thermisol, that doesn't mean you can't vaccinate.

Unless...

[WED Fan]

Because before YouTube it was harder for the uneducated or misinformed to get an audience...

Unless, of course, you were on /., then you could get a lot of it because everyone knows that computer geeks are masters of just about every science.