Online misinformation is leaching out from cheap mobile phones and free Facebook plans used by millions in the Philippines, convincing many to reject vaccinations for polio and other deadly diseases.
Childhood immunization rates have plummeted in the country — from 87 percent in 2014 to 68 percent — resulting in a measles epidemic and the re-emergence of polio last year.
A highly politicized campaign that led to the withdrawal of dengue vaccine Dengvaxia in 2017 is widely seen as one of the main drivers of the fall.
Photo: AFP
However, health experts also point to an explosion of vaccination-related misinformation that has undermined confidence in all types of immunizations.
In the northern city of Tarlac, government nurse Reeza Patriarca watched with horror the impacts of Facebook posts that falsely claimed that five people had died after receiving an unspecified vaccination.
The posts, which have been shared thousands of times, went online in August, weeks after the relaunch of a WHO-backed polio immunization drive.
COUNTERMEASURES
The Tarlac City Government and the Philippine Department of Health issued statements, saying that no one had died, but Patriarca said that the misinformation proved stronger than the truth for many parents.
“It spread like crazy. In the second week, more and more people were refusing,” said Patriarca, 27, whose health unit was administering the vaccine across nine neighborhoods.
“Some believed the [government’s] explanation, others didn’t. We couldn’t force them,” she said.
The false report in Tarlac even deterred people from getting free flu jabs in the nearby city of San Jose del Monte.
Health worker Rosanna Robianes said that older people who would normally queue at her center for their shot did not show up.
“They said it’s because of Facebook, that there’s a report that people who had been vaccinated in Tarlac had died,” Robianes said.
Interest in online anti-vaccine content has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic as scientists around the world have raced to develop an effective inoculation.
The number of followers of anti-vaccine groups and pages on Facebook in the Philippines has risen by 190,000 to about 500,000, social media monitoring platform CrowdTangle’s latest data show.
The pages have attracted 8 million interactions — reactions, comments and shares — since the pandemic began.
April Villa, a 40-year-old mother of two from the northern province of Laguna, is part of the nationwide anti-vaccine movement. Villa follows a Facebook group, titled “NO TO VACCINE — PHILIPPINES,” which was created in July and has more than 2,000 members.
She said that she joined the group to access “information which our education system could never teach.”
“It’s toxic to the human body, it kills the natural antibodies,” Villa said, adding that she would refuse a COVID-19 shot if one became available.
Most of the Philippines’ 73 million Internet users have a Facebook account, Britain-based media consultancy We Are Social said.
Nearly all user in the Philippines access the Internet on their mobile phones, where Facebook offers free data to access a limited version of its platform and other selected Web sites.
Many poorer Filipinos rely on Facebook’s free plan to access the Internet, trapping them in the social media giant’s information bubble.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has defended the service, saying that it gives people who could not otherwise afford it an opportunity to use the Internet.
In 2016, posts about now Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte flooded the social network and were seen as playing a key role in his election victory — and officials say that the network has been a boon for anti-vaccine groups too.
SPREAD OF FAKE NEWS
Philippine National Immunization Program manager Wilda Silva said that fake news about the alleged danger of vaccines “travels faster and wider than correct information.”
“Once you tap that fear factor, people’s minds quickly change, and the fear stays long in their minds,” Silva said, adding that fears of vaccines lead to a higher risk of a big outbreak of preventable diseases in the Philippines next year.
Public fears could also affect the take-up of a COVID-19 vaccine — even among people who support inoculations — in a country facing the highest rates of infection with the novel coronavirus in Southeast Asia.
“I trust vaccines 100 percent,” said Jett Bucho, who lives in a poor neighborhood of San Jose del Monte, after her one-year-old daughter was immunized against polio.
However, the 26-year-old also said that conspiracy theories on social media that a COVID-19 vaccine could be used to implant chips and control humans had planted a seed of doubt in her mind.
“On Facebook, if you keep scrolling, you see this,” Bucho said. “It is scary.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the