Science misinformation alarms Francis Collins as he leaves top NIH job

8 December, 2021

With thanks to Global Health Now and Nature. Read in full: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03611-2

What role does the NIH have in pushing back against misinformation about science?

"This has turned out to be a much more severe situation than I would have imagined a year ago. I wish we had more insights from behavioural social science research into how this has come to pass, and why it could have gotten so completely widespread. I want to call this out as one of my most major concerns as I stepped down from the NIH, of looking at the situation in our nation. Somewhere along the way, our political hyperpolarization began having a lot of really dangerous consequences, where in many instances we seem to have lost a sense of how to tell the difference between a fact and an opinion — or some Facebook post that’s, frankly, a lie. That’s truly dangerous. That’s another epidemic that is not going to go away even if we triumph over COVID-19. We need to figure out what happened here, and how to bring ourselves back to a place where our nation has a more stable future."

Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIFA Coordinator, neil@hifa.org www.hifa.org