When we think of the leading causes of death in the developed world, we tend to think of cancer and heart disease. What we do not hear about as a cause of death is misinformation. I believe that diseases such as cancer and heart disease would not kill nearly as many people if not for the help of misinformation. Not only does misinformation kill, it also messes up people’s lives. It can cause people to suffer for years in abusive relationships. It can prevent people from thriving and achieving their potential. It can cause the incarceration of innocent people. It can cause unwarranted damage to one’s reputation. Indeed, misinformation can cause a lot of needless suffering.
Note that this post is meant to raise awareness of the grave harm that misinformation can cause, how easily it can spread, and how rampant it is. This post is not meant to be an authority on which information is misinformation and which is factual.
To understand the plethora of harm that misinformation can cause, we need to understand two things:
1) Decisions we make can dramatically alter the course of our lives and sometimes be a matter of life and death
2) Misinformation interferes with these decisions
Decisions we make can be a matter of life and death
When someone receives a cancer diagnosis, the decisions he/she makes can be a matter of life and death. One bad medical decision and the person can be dead. I had a neighbor who received a bone marrow transplant after he was told that it would add seven years to his life. The procedure caused his health to make a turn for the worse instead, and he was dead in a few months. Had he known beforehand what was going to happen, he would presumably not have made that decision.
Even when our decisions are not a matter of life and death, they can still dramatically affect the course of our lives. Examples include:
- whether to marry
- whom to marry
- whether to have children
- whether to smoke
- how to eat every day
Sometimes bad decisions can cause life-altering events like car accidents.
Sometimes when someone is a powerful government official, his/her decisions can affect the rest of society. The leader of a country may have to decide whether or not to go to war. Such a decision dramatically affects not only the home country, but also the rival country. Government policies affect what happens to you when you find yourself without any income, or in large amounts of college debt. Policies affect what rights you have, and whether a criminal faces jail time for certain offenses.
Misinformation interferes with decision making
I am not going to say that misinformation is the biggest cause of bad decisions, but it is a major cause. Ruthless dictators in history have even used misinformation to justify the atrocities that they committed so that they could continue committing those atrocities with minimal public rebellion. Adolf Hitler used propaganda to justify the Holocaust. Word has it that President Putin of Russia is spreading misinformation to his people to minimize rebellion against the invasion of the Ukraine.
In my opinion, misinformation affects public health the most. Misinformation can pervert the nutrition information given to the public regarding what constitutes a healthy diet. Misinformation can alter government regulations that are supposed to protect the public from toxic environmental substances such as asbestos, second-hand smoke and other toxic chemicals from industrial production. Misinformation can reduce the quality of medical treatments for various diseases. Misinformation can cause people to get blamed for their suffering when their suffering is caused by certain factors out of their control.
The needless suffering that misinformation causes is profound. It can prevent people from choosing life-saving health interventions, thereby leading to more suffering and premature death. It can cause someone to marry the wrong person, leading to years of unhappiness, possible abuse and bitter divorce. It can cause people to consume substances every day that are harming them without their realizing it.
Misinformation regarding climate change can cause widespread harm throughout society. Let us say that there really is climate change, but misinformation is spreading that says that climate change is a hoax. Politicians who buy into this hoax theory would prevent the passage of government policies that are important for addressing climate change, thereby allowing climate change to grow worse over time, leading to coastal flooding, increases in severe hurricane activity, forest fires, reduced food production, reduced food quality, and more deaths and destruction of property from natural disasters.
On the other hand, let us say that climate change is a hoax, but misinformation says that it is real and we need to do something about it. Politicians who buy into this misinformation would promote the passage of unnecessary government policies that would increase the prices of gas, electricity and central heating. These measures would hurt the poor the hardest. Such measures also could hurt the economy and result in the loss of millions of jobs.
What causes the spread of misinformation?
Here are some of the reasons that people spread misinformation:
- pride and arrogance
- preconceived bias
- wishful thinking
- negligence
- honest mistakes
Pride and arrogance: The medical profession
Pride and arrogance are not necessarily the first things that come to mind when we think of what motivates people to spread misinformation, but I believe it is a significant factor. One group of people that spreads misinformation out of pride and arrogance is medical doctors and medical researchers. Some (but certainly not all) of these highly educated people are arrogant, and therefore like to think that they are superior to the patients. They like to see themselves as gods in white lab coats who have the right to tell patients what to do.
The truth is that the most effective (and safe) remedy for the major killer diseases of the developed world is lifestyle changes. However, the health care system is ridden with money-driven corruption where the objective is to make money and not to cure disease. You need to understand that there is strong incentive to treat a disease, but also a strong disincentive to cure it. When disease is treated, the symptoms reduce or go away, but the underlying disease is still there. When the disease is cured, on the other hand, the underlying disease is gone, which means no more going to the doctor’s office, no more pills, no more procedures. Such a scenario would be great for patients, but would be a tragic loss for the health care system because it would mean the loss of customers. For this reason, medical doctors are only taught how to treat these chronic diseases (heart disease, cancer diabetes, autoimmune disease), not cure them. Note that even when medical doctors recommend some dietary changes, they do not tend to be sufficient to prevent disease progression, let alone allow for disease reversal.
A medical doctor, when consumed in pride, would never want to admit that he/she paid a fortune to go to medical school only to find out that laypeople who never even received a bachelor’s degree know how to cure chronic diseases that he/she was only taught how to treat. Furthermore, these cures are not made in a laboratory, but rather come from one’s backyard and from the supermarket. Overly proud medical doctors would rather deny the scientific evidence behind the efficacy of such lifestyle changes.
A medical doctor may say that there is “no scientific evidence” to back up lifestyle changes as effective treatments/cures for these chronic diseases. Do not be fooled. People wearing white lab coats do not necessarily know what they are talking about. There is ample scientific evidence that lifestyle changes are more effective in the treatment and cure of the major killer diseases, which I list at the end of this blog post.
Also listed at the end of this blog post are peer-reviewed science articles and other articles discussing the close-knit financial relationship between medical doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Also listed are articles discussing food industry corruption, including the corruption of health and nutrition information being given to the public. In other words, if you visit a dietitian or nutritionist, you are not necessarily going to receive scientifically sound diet or nutrition advice. As a result, you may continue to consume unhealthy foods every day without realizing it, and potentially be setting yourself up for a life of chronic disease and a slow premature death.
Cancer and heart disease do kill a lot of people, but they would not have been able to kill nearly as many people if not for the rampant spread of misinformation, much of which comes from the very doctors that we rely on to restore us to good health!
Pride and arrogance: laypeople
Both experts and non-experts can spread misinformation about a given topic. Because of the advent of the internet, most people have access to large amounts of information that they did not have access to before. We used to have to go to a library and search through the library archives to get information about a topic. Now it is so much easier to acquire large amounts of information from a smart phone in the palm of our hand, but it comes with a price — the spread of misinformation.
The problem is that laypeople generally do not know misinformation when they see it. Even educated intellectuals do not always recognize misinformation when they see it due to preconceived bias, group think and other factors. Yet many laypeople read articles on the internet, watch youtube videos and listen to podcasts, and then fall into the illusion that they are experts on whatever topic they are reading about. Some laypeople are arrogant enough to assume that they know the topic better than the experts with PhDs.
For example, during the coronavirus pandemic, people were reading articles, watching youtube videos and listening to podcasts about the coronavirus, and then assumed that they understood the virus better than infectious disease experts with PhDs. While everyday common sense can get you a long way, it does not tell you everything. For example, even though the virus is smaller than the openings in the fabric of a mask, the virus may still not penetrate the mask because it travels in droplets, which are large enough to not pass through the fabric of the mask.
When laypeople are arrogant enough to see themselves as experts on a subject—just because they watched some youtube videos and listened to some podcasts—they become vessels through which misinformation is spread. Such misinformation can in certain contexts cause preventable sickness and even deaths among large numbers of people.
Preconceived bias and wishful thinking
Forming beliefs based on prior beliefs rather than sound logic and evidence is common. In a way, it takes humility to admit that one’s prior beliefs were wrong, but it is necessary in order to adopt new beliefs based on new information. Not everyone has this kind of humility.
Prior beliefs are not the only thing that can lead to preconceived bias. Preconceived bias can form against anything that goes against mainstream thinking. For example, the vegan diet is very different from the mainstream diet, and many people fear that it can cause protein deficiency and other deficiencies. If, for example, a person is vegan and happens to have osteopenia (low bone density), others may automatically jump to the conclusion that the osteopenia is linked to the person being vegan, and figure that maybe the person is not consuming enough dairy. Obviously, lots of people who eat a standard diet also have osteopenia and osteoporosis. Furthermore, countries consuming the most dairy also have the highest rates of osteoporosis and hip fractures. Nevertheless, the people who are biased against the vegan diet may start to spread word that the vegan diet causes osteopenia just because of the one vegan they met who had osteopenia.
Sometimes even when there are research studies that refute someone’s preconceived bias, the person will still find a reason to cling to his/her prior beliefs. The person may even claim that these research studies have been “discredited”. When someone tells you that someone’s research has been discredited, be skeptical. It may just be that the results of the study go against mainstream thinking, which is often wrong anyway. A study can be controversial, but that does not mean that it should be discredited. For something to be discredited, it needs to be proven to be untrustworthy. This can happen in cases of fraud and conflicts of interest.
Sometimes people come to certain beliefs because of wishful thinking. To strengthen their convictions for what they want to be true, they may try to get other people to believe the same thing. This previous blog post presents more discussion of preconceived bias and wishful thinking.
Many times people will claim that something is lacking in scientific evidence without having ever done a search through the science literature. Perhaps they are going by what someone else said or they just expect the evidence to fall into their lap without their having to look for it. Therefore, when someone tells you that there “is no evidence” for something, you should ask them if they did a thorough search through the science literature. What search words and search engines did they use? What studies did they find?
People are usually reluctant to put in the time to do a thorough search through the science literature, but they often have plenty of time to state their opinion on the subject. I guess it is more fun to express one’s opinion than it is to do the research.
Negligence and honest mistakes
Another reason that people spread misinformation is negligence. It is easy to hear about something or read something, and just believe it without checking the facts or considering the source. Checking the facts tends to require a significant amount of work, and not everyone is willing to put in the effort and/or the time. If you think that checking the facts would be too much work, the least you can do is not spread the information to others. Just as you would not feed someone without making sure that the food is free from poison, you should not spread information without first making sure that it is factually correct.
Sometimes, however, people spread misinformation because they honestly believe it to be true, and they had no way of knowing otherwise. Such people are not at fault. As I discussed earlier, both experts and non-experts can spread misinformation, which begs the question: whom can we trust? When navigating through a sea of information, it can be hard for people—including experts—to spot misinformation.
“There is no evidence that…”
The expression “there is no evidence that…” is can be misleading and is often laced with the burden of proof logical fallacy. For example, when someone says there is no evidence that GMOs are unsafe, even if this statement is factually correct, it says nothing about whether or not GMOs are safe. Why? Because while there may be no evidence that GMOs are unsafe, there may not be evidence that GMOs are safe either. The individual, by only stating that there is no evidence that GMOs are unsafe, is shifting the burden of proof towards proving that GMOs are safe. In other words, the individual is taking the stance that we should by default assume that GMOs are safe until we find evidence otherwise. Such a stance is irresponsible and destructive.
In some cases when there is lack of evidence for something, it is because not enough studies have been done on the topic or studies that were done on the topic were inconclusive. When a study on the safety of GMOs is inconclusive, it means that no conclusions could be drawn and so the study neither tells us that GMOs are safe nor that GMOs are unsafe.
So when someone says something to you that starts with “there’s no evidence that…”, I say you should challenge him/her by asking him/her what evidence there was to the contrary. Lack of evidence does not necessarily qualify as evidence to the contrary.
My personal experience
I know first hand what it is like to have a chronic disease and be at the mercy of misinformation. Based on my experience, when you have a chronic disease, your biggest enemies are misinformation and a lack of good information. I had found that natural health doctors were able to help me in ways that the medical doctors did not. From a natural health doctor, I found out about food intolerances that I had, which I never found out about from a medical doctor. The natural health doctor was also able to cure the food intolerances with food desensitization therapy. After that, foods that used to bother me did not anymore. From another natural health doctor, I found out that I had small-intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), and he told me about a diet that fixes it. The diet worked. Again, the medical gastroenterologist did not know to test for SIBO.
Now suppose that someone were to tell me that these natural health doctors are not real medical doctors, and are just a bunch of quacks. If I were to listen to such a person and stay away from these natural health doctors, I would never have found out that I had SIBO and would never have found out about my food intolerances. Needless suffering would have ensued for years to come.
One time I went to the emergency room because I had really bad pains in my legs. The ER doctor said I had arthritis and told me that I am “not 15 anymore”. In other words, I was told that I am getting old. I was 25 years old at the time! What I found out later was that the arthritis was caused by a reaction to the large amounts of gluten I was eating in the form of seitan. After just a few days of minimizing gluten intake, the pain went away. So much for getting old.
People with various problems are often told that they are “getting old” when really they are often just doing things to their bodies on a regular basis that their bodies do not like. I find it to be harmful and destructive to tell people to attribute their problems to factors outside of their control when in reality the problems are within their control. It is bad to tell people that they are getting old and cannot do anything about it when perhaps some simple lifestyle and medicinal interventions would have fixed the problem.
Summary
Critical thinking, rationality and diligent collection of good information are not the only things that shape someone’s beliefs. Someone’s beliefs also can be shaped by wishful thinking, pride, arrogance, preconceived biases, prejudice, etc. When people’s beliefs are shaped by these things, they are more likely to spread misinformation.
I advise you, the reader, to be careful of what information you divulge. If it is indeed misinformation, it is potentially a poisonous venom, particularly when it comes to people’s health. If someone is suffering from a serious health condition and is considering a somewhat unorthodox treatment approach, and you tell him/her that this approach is not backed by science without checking your facts, then for all you know you may be wrong, in which case you are potentially preventing the other person from undergoing an unorthodox treatment that would save his/her life. The misinformation that you divulge to this person may result in this person’s slow and painful premature death. A funeral could be taking place because of you.
Even if an unorthodox treatment does not work, is it high risk? Conventional health interventions tend to be the highest risk because they often involve invasive surgeries and toxic drugs. Some of the articles I list below discuss the dangers of conventional medical care. I am aware that extreme dietary changes come with risks as well, but how would that compare to bypass surgery or cancer chemotherapy?
What is worse than not knowing? In my opinion it is believing something that is not true.
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