
Alarmed by the increasing spread of medical misinformation, 50 U.S. medical and science organizations have announced the formation of a new group that aims to debunk fake health news. Called the Coalition for Trust in Health & Science, the group brings together reputable associations representing American academics, researchers, scientists, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, drug and insurance companies, consumer advocates, public health professionals and even medical ethicists. A small sampling of the groups that have currently signed on includes the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American College of Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. The coalition plans to take direct aim at what it is calling a “health infodemic.” “I’ll start in saying that we in health care are very aware that American society — the contemporary society that we live in — is characterized to a significant degree by a distrust in almost all of institutions of our society, and by uncertainty as to the truthfulness or accuracy of the information that is being presented to them,” noted Dr. Reed Tuckson, chair and co-founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID (BCAC) and a core convening committee member of the newly formed coalition. He argues that this predisposition to distrust is compounded by the… read on > read on >