Dear HIFA colleagues,
CITATION: Chris Whitty: Why health misinformation spreads—and honesty about uncertainty is the answer
BMJ 2025; 391 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2338 (Published 13 November 2025)
EXTRACTS
England’s chief medical officer said in a recent lecture that misinformation has always accompanied medical progress — and that the battle is winnable if we can talk honestly about uncertainty
“Through every single one of the past 160 years there was extensive misinformation about health — and yet the improvements continued,” said Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England. “It is extremely important that we take on this misinformation, but we also should accept that this is a battle that is winnable.”
Whitty was speaking at Health Misinformation: Unpacked, an event held in October at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, at which Whitty is also professor of public and international health...
Whitty also challenged the notion that the UK is experiencing a collapse in vaccination confidence. “People who are peddling disinformation often try to give the impression that the public is split down the middle. That is untrue,” he said. “Over 92% of children are vaccinated with the six-in-one vaccine and 91.9% with the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. This has been described as ‘falling off a cliff,’ but a lot of it is actually to do with accessibility.”...
Whitty outlined four main motives behind health disinformation: financial gain, political or institutional rivalry, vanity, and misunderstanding...
Whitty distinguished deliberate deceit from honest misunderstanding. “The central reason people take notice of misinformation is that they want the best for themselves and their families. We absolutely should start off with a deeply respectful position towards people who are doing this.” [NPW COMMENT: I would argue that misunderstanding on the part of the messenger is associated with misinformation whereas misunderstanding on the part of the reader/recipient is not a characteristic of misinformation. I would agree the central challenge is to ensure that people have access to the reliable information they need to protect their own health and the health of others, and that they are empowered to differentiate this from misinformation]
He urged academics and clinicians to prioritise transparency and precision. “It is our job to prevent misinformation becoming the dominant narrative. The public are very sensible. But they have legitimate questions and it is our job to answer them clearly and fairly.”
“If you do not make the uncertainties clear, you will correctly lose trust,” he said. “Good data and accurate description of uncertainty is the key to all discussions. If you shy away from the uncertainties, you will lose the long term war.”
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org