How Debunked Science Spreads

Authors: Lily Meyersohn (Stanford Internet Observatory) and Erin McAweeney (Graphika)

In late July, a conspiracy theory that over 45,000 people in the US have died from COVID-19 vaccines spread online after a lawsuit was filed in federal court by America’s Frontline Doctors. The group, which has filed similar lawsuits before, regularly spreads anti-vaccine and COVID-19 misinformation. The claims made in the filing are based on written testimony from an anonymous whistleblower, who allegedly proved that COVID-19 vaccine deaths are underreported using data from Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) as evidence. This lawsuit and its accompanying testimony of the unfactual analysis is an example of a common method used to spread misleading anti-vaccine content: misrepresentation of data from self-reporting databases. Here, we discuss this method alongside others that present debunked or decontextualized scientific studies and analysis as factual.

In a recent Virality Project blog post, we discussed how anti-vaccine advocates attempt to undermine established medical and public health voices as they spread their own views. These repeated attacks not only aim to delegitimize medical experts or the institutions they represent, but are also intentionally applied to shift credibility and authority toward anti-vaccine advocates and influencers.

Some prominent figures in the anti-vaccine community have nontraditional medical backgrounds, financial interests in alternative cures, and support from anti-restrictions and anti-vaccine politicians. Pseudo-medical influencers – often non-board certified doctors or alternative medicine practitioners – simultaneously encourage followers to “do their own research” while offering up unreliable sources of information and debunked vaccine studies. In the place of credible experts, an alternative network of pseudo-medical influencers, debunked science papers, and misconstrued data emerges.

“Do It Yourself” research and misrepresented data 

Anti-vaccine activists and influencers commonly create and encourage their followers to pursue their own “DIY” research, which generally is posited as followers “checking” what establishment scientists and public health researchers say (rather than actually performing any of their own research). The process follows a repetitive trajectory. To start, influencers raise doubts about institutional numbers and research, asking questions or feeding their followers an ideology that erodes confidence in the abilities of health experts. 

The seeding of this doubt is key. danah boyd, scholar and founder of Data & Society, has discussed how digital media can easily amplify the spread of false information by starting with doubt. “When you start asking questions,” boyd says, “your question or your proposed alternative fact can reach millions of people,” as long as it is “staged right.” Thus, doing your own “research” — usually performing searches on engines like Google, Bing, or YouTube — doesn’t always work. It often leads people right to manipulated information, because the search results for those engines have been optimized to feed users those sources. In this environment, anti-vaccine influencers can use this tactic to call into question information coming out of science and public health establishments. 

Hours after the FDA and CDC announcement an April 2021 pause in Janssen vaccine distribution to investigate a small number of blood clots among recipients, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a frequent spreader of anti-vaccine misinformation among right-leaning viewers, said, “there are reasons to believe [the CDC’s numbers] in fact aren’t the real numbers.” Suggesting that the CDC was lying about the numbers is the first step in that repetitive trajectory; the second step is for anti-vaccine influencers to step in with their own answers. The public never gets the opportunity to learn from useful sources, and is instead fed misrepresented data from influencers. Ill-equipped to perform legitimate research, “DIY” research becomes a myth. 

The crowd-sourced “research” peddled by anti-vaccine activists most often hinges upon the use of the publicly accessible VAERS database. As a self-reported vaccine injury database, the injuries filed in VAERS are not independently verified as caused by or linked to vaccines. VAERS data is commonly used to underpin misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccine injury and death. The database has long been a target for anti-vaccine activists, most notably in 2011 when it was used as a scare tactic for the safety of the Gardasil HPV vaccine. For the COVID-19 vaccines, our analysts observed multiple approaches to sharing unverified information from VAERS, including screenshots of searches within VAERS that show sensationalized numbers of reported deaths or serious adverse events, including neurological disorders like Bell’s Palsy. These unverified numbers, which have no confirmed link to vaccination, are circulated in online communities. Some TikTok videos show injured people with text overlays of VAERS entries, or cite VAERS data for an “in-depth exploration” of the numbers. One viral TikTok from early March (since removed) explicitly shows viewers how to search through the database to find adverse events from the COVID-19 vaccine – implying that viewers can do their own work to decide whether or not the vaccine is safe or right for them or their family or children. 

A variety of accounts use VAERS data to cast doubt on the vaccines. We have observed such posts from popular anti-vaccine, wellness and parenting accounts and groups including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Joseph Mercola, and the Children’s Health Defense. Their posts regularly garner tens of thousands of engagements, but often stay within more “closed” anti-vaccine circles as opposed to going viral within the mainstream. More recently, wrapper sites have also been created for VAERS data, including a popular site called OpenVAERS that was launched in January 2021. OpenVAERS makes VAERS data digestible for ordinary users; not only do its redbox summaries make for striking sharable social media content, but users can also leverage the site’s tools to easily read and search through individual reports of adverse events. According to a LogicallyAI report, 1.23M people visited OpenVAERS from February through July of this year, compared to only 796K visitors to the official VAERS website over the same period. 

The call to look towards injury databases is not a phenomenon unique to the United States. Other countries have similar databases to VAERS, including the Yellow Card reporting site in the UK and EudraVigilance used in the European Economic Area. Those databases have likewise been used by the anti-vaccine movement to falsely depict the vaccines as unsafe. The WHO also runs a database called VigiAccess, which has been used by European anti-vaccine accounts to try to prove that COVID-19 vaccines have resulted in more relative adverse events than other vaccines, including smallpox, flu, and MMR. Naturally, these posts regularly breed comments expressing vaccine safety concerns. 

Decontextualized database content on social media also cherry-picks the most sensational or eye-catching vaccine events such as death (especially of a young person), neurological effects, or infertility. As a result, the public is left with the impression that adverse events from vaccination are exponentially more likely and more terrible than they truly are. The impact is unmistakable: a concerned public, looking for answers, is led to faulty, vague information that only exacerbates their safety fears about vaccination. Rather than feeling more connected to sources of useful information, they are left more isolated inside the influencers’ vacuum.

Decontextualized or debunked studies

In addition to misconstruing VAERS data, throughout the pandemic anti-vaccine influencers have commonly shared decontextualized studies and clinical trial data alongside misleading claims about their findings. This includes older studies, such as a 2012 SARS Coronavirus vaccine study which provided data on the efficacy and safety of early vaccine prototypes in mice. That study’s positive results tested technology that was very different from the mRNA technology used today. Other studies from reputable institutions have been misrepresented as “evidence" in viral posts to support anti-vaccine claims, which are contrary to actual findings of the misrepresented study. Studies and scientific articles have been used to falsely claim that mRNA vaccines will permanently alter the recipient’s DNA, that natural immunity is just as or more protective than vaccine immunity, that vaccines are ineffective, and to exaggerate the severity of COVID-19 vaccine side effects. 

One recurring example of this tactic is its use on studies and data released from the Israeli Health Ministry. With one of the highest global vaccine rates, Israel is commonly depicted as an “experiment” for vaccine side effects and risks by anti-vaccine advocates. Studies and data released from the Israel Health Ministry are commonly framed in a misleading way by anti-vaccine influencers. This is particularly evident around topics that include some uncertainty, like vaccine efficacy and risks. In the past, misrepresented studies from Israel have been used to claim that the Pfizer vaccine caused more deaths than COVID-19 infections would have and that Israeli death rates are “skyrocketing” due to the vaccine. This last study was partially based on misrepresented data from VAERS, which demonstrates the combined impact of the tactics. Overall, misleading claims made about the COVID-19 vaccines supported by debunked or decontextualized studies have underpinned numerous viral anti-vaccine posts.   

Conclusion

It is understandable that in the face of new scientific technologies the public might feel concerned, need more information, or want to read a variety of opinions. However, rather than moving people towards a range of accurate information and perspectives, anti-vaccine “experts” push their audiences toward skewed, unreliable, and faulty information – most notably, from their own pseudo-medical sources. 

The call to “do your own research” is also compelling when authoritative sources are repeatedly undermined and cast as untrustworthy by anti-vaccine influencers. Portions of a society fragmented by alternative sources of health information and debunked science are more likely to balk at public health initiatives, including vaccines. As such, the use of manipulated statistics and debunked science is a fundamental tactic for influencers hoping to destabilize trust in vaccines. Debunked science and decontextualized data are now being used to underpin arguments that set precedent in law and policy, further threatening the legitimacy and validity of established health science and guidance.