12
votes
What are everyone's resources for fact-checking health claims?
I'm wondering what resources people use to aggregate technical or nuanced information primarily for fact-checking claims about anything health-related. Ironically, everyone and their mother appears to be a medical scientist meanwhile as a scientist in the medical field myself, I feel overwhelmed to answer questions properly.
Recently I found the website Health Feedback which seems to be reliable, though confirmation of that would be great. They appear to be on top of anything COVD-19-related.
Another source I use for nutritional stuff is Examine but for now I'm more interested in relevant and recent health "news" topics.
The Lancet might be a good starting place. The University of Oxford's Center for Evidence-Based Medicine currently has a lot of material on COVID-19, if that's what you're looking for.
Oh nice. Could you elaborate on why you favor The Lancet? Is it accessible for the "intelligent layman"? Part of my challenge here is to be a mediator for connecting laymen with the hard science.
It seems well organized. I don't know that it's that accessible for the layman, though. CEBM seems to be more digestible, in that regard. Their articles on COVID-19 seem to be pretty easy to follow, at least. And they give a nice summary ("verdict") at the beginning for those with no time or patience to read them through.
As a fellow medical professional, I immediately look for linked studies/papers in the article I'm reading to support the author's claim. If they don't link them I typically assume they don't know what they're talking about and ignore the article or look for an article where they do provide the links (or at least the name) to read the information myself.
Yea, the problem here is the tech and literature-search savvy conspiracy theorist. One of my greatest challenges has been an anti-vaxxer that cites many papers to support their claims about vaccines being ineffective or dangerous. While often accurate statements are made, they end of cherry picking the statements from the paper or ignore the greater picture context. So I'm hoping for resources, like the Health Feedback that I linked, that is one step ahead in "debunking" certain claims with literature ahead of time.
Though I realize what I'm asking for may not be a real thing, at least not to the full extent that I hope for.
Ah, you see that's where you have to choose how to use your time. Sure, even I like to play devil's advocate far too often and even take things to ridiculous levels, but for me it's a form of entertainment. The whole "Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in the mud. After a bit, you might realize the pig likes it." sort of thing.
When it comes to people like anti-vaxxers I simply choose to publicly and wholly embarrass them once and then ignore afterward if they prove unwilling to reason, accept evidence, or understand fact. There's little fun in having a battle of wits with the unarmed, so no need for a prolonged battle. Sure, once they're publicly shamed, insulted, and turned upon by others they typically harbor resentment and only dig their heels into their personal beliefs, but they don't tend to openly discuss or practice them any longer. Silenced, they don't spread harm as they had before. They may hate me afterward, but I'm not here to be liked; I'm here to be right. And if they're going to spread dangerous misinformation the fastest way to stop it is by the greatest means possible. The nuclear option so to speak.
It's not a nice way of doing things I'll admit, but the nice way was having a conversation they ignored, supplying evidence they refuted, and appealing to reason and fact that they can't be bothered to consider.
The internet is a wonderful place, it has given everyone a voice.
The internet is a terrible place, it has given everyone a voice.
I generally agree, but in this case I engage because this person (and others like them) are influencing others because of what may appear to others as intelligence and prowess in reading and understanding literature, which is why I engage in the first place. Because of their ability to argue, embarrassment is not really an option because of their ability to refute arguments So I'm looking for an alternative "nuclear" option where I don't have to spend an unreasonable amount of time and effort to do what I think is the ethical thing to do (for the audience watching, not necessarily for that person) by bringing in a third-party heavyweight, so to speak.
Also, for the record, I have trouble believing that you are actually that effective in public shaming people online, as the shame factor is difficult if not impossible to attain with anonymity and search engines that will support you know matter what your opinion is.
Anonymity does hamper effectiveness, but I just assumed, possibly incorrectly, that it was real name sort of scenario and not a hiding behind a username sort.
NHS Behind the Headlines: https://www.nhs.uk/news/
l'm assuming anything on the internet is generally bullshit(especially health websites), perhaps plausible, and take that information to my GP if required.
If it's fact checking, l try to find relevant papers or ask a friend who's a doctor.