‘Don’t trust Trump’: how UK health experts are fighting back against a war on medicine | Health
British Health Secretary Wes Streeting was in a government car that returned to the center of London from the raising a flag to mark the recognition of Palestine when he saw the news. “He’s worth it,” he said. Streeting was reading on his phone that Donald Trump warned his women not to take Tylenol, known as paracetamol outside the US during pregnancy.
The US President claimed that the common painkiller had caused autism in children without evidence. “Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said about a drug, also known as acetaminophen.
The British government was criticized for dealing with all kinds of problems around Trump. But it seems to be about it. Streeting decided to prepare a plan to limit the sprinkler in the United Kingdom and to assure mothers to secure the safe to buy paracetamol. He decided to refute what Trump said – open to the public and strongly -.
Already the next morning he was reserved to appear on a breakfast show, he knew he would be asked about Streeting Trump. “He knew it should be clearly,” he said. “Whatever the diplomatic problems we face, first of all, our responsibility is the health of people.”
‘Listen to doctors, scientists’
When the question came, the streets were ruthless. “Frankly, I trust doctors about it,” he said. Im I must be really clear about this: There is no evidence to associate the use of paracetamol by pregnant women with autism in children.
“So I can only say to the people who follow: Don’t pay any attention to what Donald Trump says about medicine. In fact, as a politician, don’t even take my word as a politician – listen to British doctors, British scientists, NHS.”
The title -making response to Trump’s unfounded claim was completed with a “air branches” strategy that the Ministry of Social Care (DHSC) began to emerge the day before.
Drugs, NHS UK, GPS Royal College, Royal Pharmaceutical Society and British Health Security Agency and health products regulatory agency bodies such as senior figures, Tuesday, on Tuesday media negotiations with similar messages to Streeting’s conveyed messages.
National autistic society, “President Trump and [the US health secretary] Robert F Kennedy JR, said he would weaken decimal years of research and leave the autistic people “horrified and scared”.
Their answers are compatible with what is given by the World Health Organization (WHO) and leading medical organs in the United States.
In addition, DHSC officials gave doctors and impressives on social media pages and briefings on Paracetamol and Pregnancy to ensure that they received accurate, well -proven information on platforms such as X, Tiktok and Instagram.
Recent months have brought a few high -profile examples about medicine, and such misinformation has increased increasing alarm in the global health community.
In June, cancer doctors explained their fear that some patients preferred the quack regimes, such as coffee enemies and raw fruit juice diets.
Days later, BBC announced How did Paloma Shemerani, the daughter of a nurse, died after rejecting chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma without Hodgkin. The 23 -year -old child chose to use Gerson therapy, an uncovered treatment for cancer.
And this month, the reform claimed that the Cardiologist King Charles and Wales Cancer Princess were linked to those with Covid vaccine.
However, experts examining the wrong information of health, Trump’s words as a worrying new miscarriage.
Helen Bedford, who is a professor of child health in London (UCL) in the University College, said: “It is not based on evidence because he is the most powerful man in the world. He was shocked because you know the effect he would have because he implies that autism was something to be avoided, not only on pregnant women. ‘
Dr Susanna Kola-Palmer, a psychologist at the University of Huddersfield, said: “People are prone to authority prejudice, trust and believe that someone in the authority says they are just an authority figure.
“When the health incorrect information is sold to the public by such a strong person, it is both deeply disturbing and dangerous because it faces the risk of erosing the trust of the people to science and endancing public health.”
Health professionals are afraid of Trump’s fear that connects Acetaminophen to autism – if they become ill, they can use pregnant women with a few medicines, and then cause diseases such as pain or fever and damage them or their unborn children.
Pharmacists in the United Kingdom report that Trump’s words may already affect their decisions about some people’s health. 24% of the 500 pharmacy survey said that they encountered patients questioning the safety of paracetamol this week.
Olivier Picard, President of the National Pharmacy Association, said, “These are anxious findings that show that the comments in the US have a direct impact on patients in the UK and that some of them prevent some proven and safe medical treatments,” he said.
‘Fook narratives’
Write in LANCET In July, Heidi Larson, anthropology professor at the Journal of Medicine, London Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, described the US as the origin of the “False Information Pandemi” and “Folding Narratives olan, which has caused a discussion during Covid pandemia and has gained more traction since then.
For example, from 2019 to 2021, the USA acted as a large exporter of the COVİD-19 vaccine false information, and American accounts were disproportionately represented as central center in global false information networks ”. This affected behavior in countries as far as Nigeria, Ghana and Bulgaria, and contributed to the reduction of Covid and childhood vaccines.
As a result, organs such as WHO and Gavi, Vaccines Alliance, can be viewed directly to American political discourse and media with the hesitations of the exported disinformation, ”he said.
Common efforts to weaken vaccines are increasing despite who to guess These vaccines have saved 154 million lives since 1974 – 101 million children – and new vaccines seem to promise about diseases that they have not been used until recently.
So, how can the increasing threat to worldwide health be handled?
Despite lack of evidence, there is no clear way to stop authoritarian Trump and Kennedy from encouraging health -related wild theories. However, experts say that new approaches are required in response to large technology companies, especially in social media platforms, which are very frightening. There is a consensus based on transferring the right information through brochures and websites.
“Although the messages from WES Street and Professional Organizations are very useful, the important thing for the public shows that there are individual conversations with health professionals,” Bedford said. “Most people trust health professionals and want to talk to them when they have worries and questions. This can be very strong and very effective.”
However, it was the shortage of many health professionals of the UK – that the number of health visitors has fallen sharply since 2015 – therefore it was not clear how the informative and potentially reassuring conversations would be. Authorized, a different mentality and proactive among clinicians, before treatment appointments to provide such a shift to a larger health labor force, he said.
NHS infectious Diseases Doctor and Global Health Specialist Chris Van Tulleken in UCL, considering that some of the products causing great damages, the clinicians who have caused major damage, the suspected, conspiracy views of patients should not automatically ignore their views.
“We should meet the place they are with people.
Last year, DSÖ is doing more to remove the content that can endanger health with Tiktok and Factchecking and social media company.
Who Fides Network Dr Alex Rwani, one of the relevant ones, brings together more than 1000 health professionals who are active on social media to “strengthen reliable content and push them back against harmful false information”. “This is actually ‘reliable sounds’ network.” For example, one of these sounds, Dr Mikhail “Mike” Varshavski has more than 29 million followers on social media.
Rwani said that social media platforms should do much more. “Great technology already knows how to download, download, transfer, or quarantine content. These processes can be applied to high -risk content and should be applied [about health]”He said.
“We need better risk flags and warnings at the point of exposure, how you get a pop-up for some cookies or how the spam filters work with e-mail.
