History and Harm of Misinformation

Misinformation is not a new concept. Let's go through a brief visual timeline depicting some examples of misinformation and the potential harm it caused throughout history! Click below on the different time periods to see what misinformation has looked like over the last few centuries! Keep in mind that these are just some examples.

1835: The New York Sun published various articles claiming there was life on the moon. This “life” was supposedly discovered by well-known astronomer at the time Sir John Hershel. This was a strategy used by the newspaper to gain new subscribers to the newspaper and as a result of this story it quickly became the world’s best-selling newspaper. It was later announced by the newspaper that the story was a hoax (Common Sense, 2017; Starmans, 2018)

1917: The Times and Daily Mail published accounts from anonymous sources that claimed a “Kadaver” factory in Germany existed where glycerine was extracted from corpses of deceased soldiers in WW1 to make soap and margarine. It was later disclosed that this story originated from M17 and is an example of the many false stories reported during the war as anti-German propaganda (Common Sense, 2017; Starmans, 2018).

1996: In a scientific report published in a journal, senior author and endocrinologist, John A. McLachlan, claimed that mixtures of some pesticides may be endocrine disruptors and can lead to a rise in estrogen hormones, causing birth defects and cancer in humans and animals. This caused significant effects in federal legislation even when the results were later found unreproducible (Roston, 2015).

1998: The Lancet published a study conducted by Andrew Wakefield that claimed there was a connection between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. This claim caused widespread negative effects including a lack of public confidence in the vaccine (many parents refused the shot for their children) resulting in dangerous outbreaks in North America and Europe. Cases of measles and mumps increased dramatically with the number of deaths directly correlating to lack of vaccination rates. It was later found in a 2010 investigation that Wakefield was guilty of fraud and misconduct as information about the children used in his study was altered and significant financial conflicts were found. Follow-up studies have shown no connection between vaccines and childhood autism (Mintz, 2012; Roston, 2015).

2012: Food and Chemical Toxicology (a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering aspects of food safety, chemical safety, and other aspects of consumer product safety) claimed to show that premature deaths in rats from cancer was due to pesticides and genetically modified corn. This paper was later retracted due to experimental design flaws. The study used a sample size that was too small and the strain of rats used were found to be prone to cancer (Roston, 2015).

Hold on a Second...

Over half of those examples were from scientists, weren't they?

Yes, they were! This is why developing your science literacy skills is so important - because misinformation can come from anywhere. Nobody, not even reputable journals and researchers, can be relied on without fail. Sometimes it comes from honest mistakes, and sometimes there are more intentional reasons behind it, but we have to be able to look at scientific information in any form, analyze it, and understand it for ourselves.

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