Misinformation Through Media
In the spring of 2011, In south Korea, seven pregnant women were hospitalized with lung disease of unknown cause. And not long after that, four people died. However, five years ago in 2006, seven infants and young children died from similar symptoms. during the investigation, the study team found commonality among the victims that due to certain condition of the air, the victims’ lungs (around the bronchial tubes) were damaged. Four months later, what turned out to be the certain condition of the air was that the chemicals in the humidifier disinfectant caused the symptoms of lung fibrosis and led to death in the people who had inhaled the air during the use of the humidifier. There were 1,528 known victims and 239 among them have lost theri lives.
The majority of the victims who have survived from the incident are living with respiratory diseases so that many are living in hospitals. They are living the lives that can not live without medicine for even a day and must have an oxygenator by their side for every single moment. The reason what led to a significant number of victims is because of false advertisements and false information dissemination. The mentioned humidifier brand’s false advertisement is found to have made 95% of the victims, which is an advertising phrase for humidifier products : ” Easy to clean the humidifier – sterilize 99.9% safe for children.” It was revealed that 89 of the 94 actual humidifier disinfectant deaths were infants and toddlers, which is why more child victims and pregnant women were found.
Same company’s different type of humidifier product had this phrase written, ” You can use it with trust by using ingredients that are safe for the human body.” However, the above phrase was simply a cruel desire to sell the product better without objective evidence or insepction. Also, in another product, there was this phrase shown on the product : ” It is a safe product that does not harm the human body by using an antimicrobial agent that has been recognized as low toxicity by a British research institute,” but the seriousness of false advertisements and dissemination of false facts was re-examined when it was revealed that the company had never requested toxicity tests for cmit and mit components ( chemicals used to make the humidifier) during the manufacturing process.
Victims and their families are trying their best to improve awareness by protest or movement hoping that this terrible incident will never repeated, but unfortunately, these falsehoods seem to be getting worse in modern days. In today’s digital society, we depend so much on digital that not a single day goes by without it. Among them, it is necessary to consider the seriousness of health misinformation through media features. In fact, there is a study conducted at the University of Chicago about health misinformation on Tik Tok. For the study, researchers conducted searches for only 24 hours to limit Tik Tok’s algorithm with a focus on specific health conditions. Researchers used hashtags related to sinusitis, categorized videos according to their content types, and evaluated the quality of videos in different ways, and these assessments were based on a proven demonstration tool.
With about 44 percent of the videos containing information that was untrue. Videos from “non-medical influencers”, more than 10,000 Tik Tok creators, were more likely to contain untrue information and lower quality scores. The proliferation of untrue videos about medical conditions, treatments, or preventive measures can lead to disruptive health consequences as well as potentially harmful health consequences. Some “cures” on social media can actually be dangerous. There is also the subtle impact of people relying on ineffective alternative therapies that are being promoted online, or losing confidence in healthcare professionals and organizations, which can lead to missing out on the healthcare they need.
Furthermore, when researchers analyzed the sinusitis-related Tik Tok, one of the trends was to insert whole garlic into the nose to relieve nasal congestion. Unlocking the nose after inserting the garlic causes more mucus, but this is because the garlic stimulates and increases mucus production. However, contrary to expectations, those who followed this procedure eventually ended up with harming the nasal tissue or breathing in the garlic too deeply, thereby clogging the nasal cavity. As it should be, nearly 60 percent of the videos from non-medical influencers had low quality scores and contained incorrect information, they had greater visibility.
As this study supports we are exposed to more misinformation than we think, especially in the media. To prevent this, there is something we must be aware of ourselves. As much as we are easily exposed to the media, we tend to overlook the credibility of the content so easily. Eventually, it might come to a situation where we can pass on trivially and so be endangered by that trivial and careless behavior, so I would like to tell through this essay to take some time to slowly recapture the parts that we have taken for granted once again from media of health contents, and I hope that it lead us to make future choices more helpful.
By: Jaeyeon Lee
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