A cry of alarm. Around thirty learned societies and medical unions, representing several thousand health professionals, have signed a platform in The Express this January 29 to “put an end to the spread of false medical information” on social networks and on certain TV channels (CNews or C8 for example). There we find Alain Fischer, president of the Academy of Sciences, Dominique Deplanque, president of the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics or Patrick Pelloux, president of the Association of Emergency Physicians of France.
This is also the case of Jérôme Barrière, who signed the column as a member of the scientific council of the French Cancer Society. On X, this “activist against medical disinformation”, as he describes himself, was called “an assassin” by Booba on January 18. The oncologist responded to the rapper who had relayed a video, repeating a statement from the controversial Didier Raoult, affirming that he was going to prove that there was a link between vaccines against Covid-19 and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (this that no epidemiological data provides). For 20 minutesJérôme Barrière returns to this episode and explains why it is urgent to act against medical misinformation.
What prompted you to participate in writing this column?
It is a set of events, abuses, propagation of false information on social networks, but also in the audiovisual media on the subject of hydroxychloroquine, which is allowed to be said at prime time that antiCovid vaccination causes strokes, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or that it would be incompatible with radiotherapy. It is the fact that we invite Didier Raoult, who only represents himself, on audiovisual channels without opposition.
We, ordinary doctors and learned societies, consider that it is not responsible for the media to allow false information to spread with anti-science, anti-vaccine speeches. We want to denounce this reckless sharing of false medical information. We believe that this is an important public health issue, because there is a risk, in particular of increasing vaccine hesitancy.
For you, is there an urgent need to take into account this problem of medical misinformation?
This seems urgent to us indeed, because we realize that medical misinformation is never free. It has a cost to public health and it brings money to the misinformants. This is why we highlight the need to support the bill against sectarian aberrations [qui doit être examiné prochainement par l’Assemblée nationale] to introduce sanctions for those who encourage people to abandon or denigrate recognized medical treatment.
We think it’s very important, it’s not in the realm of scientific controversy. We are often told that this goes against freedom of expression. No, freedom of expression exists, but it is not the freedom to say anything, nor to insult, nor to defame. When you spread false information, you put people in danger and that is not taken into account enough. We are also asking that public authorities tackle this problem head on, and also agencies such as Arcom, the Telecoms Regulatory Agency. Sanctions given to certain channels for spreading false news are very, very rare.
Booba, followed by more than 6.3 million people on X, called you a “murderer”. What consequences did this have for you?
The Booba affair was a sort of catalyst. I kindly, courteously point out to him that he is saying the wrong things and behind it it is taking on proportions where even a former university professor, Didier Raoult, says to him “Thank you for the support, little brother”. And now a senator of the Republic, Alain Houpert, says “I love Booba”. We’re hallucinating.
I received a lot of messages, it’s not human. You can’t read 900 messages in a day. Afterwards, we either gag ourselves, or we take a stand, or we try to unite. We would also like the Order of Physicians to support this. This forum transcends specialties and we are all here to say we defend science, we defend medical consensus.
Is it also just fed up with harassment?
I want to say: harassment, insults, defamation are a consequence of the fact that we resist and seek to inform. So yes, it is also a platform of support for those who get involved. It is first of all a forum which denounces the original evil, that is to say disinformation. Without disinformation, we would not have to counter-inform and we would not be insulted. We are not here to make people cry, we are here to say that the original evil is medical misinformation.