Are You Falling for Health Misinformation?
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So your Instagram handle is at, I mean, I'm sure everyone's asked you this. Say it Sanjay Gupta, say it. King gutter baby, king gutter baby. Yes it is. I want to take you back three years ago, March 2021. I sat down one day with someone who was making a name for herself on Instagram. Her name is Laurel Bristow, an infectious disease researcher at Emory University.

The reason I wanted to talk to her at the time was because when the pandemic started, she decided to step up, to use her background to answer questions about COVID online.

And the way that she did it was not only super informative, but also pretty funny. A breath of fresh air in a pretty dark time. Hello, my little cheesy gorditas, and welcome to Monday. Her account specifically focused on combating the rampant myths and conspiracy theories that were circulating online at the time. If you're going to send me a message that says, why is no one talking about X or why is no one doing Y, please make sure that's actually true before you do it. Did you even Google anything?

I was trying to do my part as well to help people understand what was happening with the COVID pandemic. Longtime listeners may remember that at that time, this podcast was a daily podcast and it was named Coronavirus Fact Versus Fiction. I really admired the way that Laurel was using a medium that was unfortunately the host of a lot of misinformation, the reservoir of a lot of bad information, social media, but she was using it to spread the truth.

Well, this march now marks five years since the World Health Organization declared COVID to be a pandemic. And it's no doubt changed all of our lives in some way.

But in light of the anniversary, I decided to reach out to Laurel once again to hear how she went about dispelling misinformation during COVID, how she approached all of that, and how she is still using that skill today to take on new conspiracy theories, new medical myths, everything from vaccine efficacy to measles. She's really good at this, and that's saying something.

And it's a skill that she has that is still, unfortunately, really relevant. And I think something that we could all stand to sharpen. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent. And this is Chasing Life. You know, so much has changed since I last spoke to Laurel, again, three years ago, including her Instagram handle. That was what initially made her pretty internet famous.

I'm sorry, I'm no longer King Gutter Baby. I know that you were. I love King Gutter Baby. I know you were so attached to my original Goofy Instagram name, but now it's just Laurel two underscore. It is one of my favorite soundbites of all time is when I got you to say King Gutter Baby. King Gutter Baby. I just said it again. Today, Laurel hosts her own podcast. It's called Health Wanted. She does it for WABE, which is Atlanta's NPR affiliate.

She admits, like many of us, her mental health has improved since the height of the pandemic. It was, yeah, that was extremely dark. I think I was working on COVID clinical trials in the hospital. So I was seeing COVID patients all day long. For many months, it was working six days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, doing all of this stuff and then coming home and getting on Instagram and, you know, answering people's questions or explaining scientific research and stuff.

And when I look back on it, the amount of work and the pace that I was doing, I'm not even sure how I did it. I think the only reason that that happened is because I did not want to have a moment to stop and really think about what was going on, which was not like the healthiest way to cope with it. But it is what I was doing. I think having a purpose really helped my mental health. So I would be at the hospital all day and then I would come home and sit in my kitchen and set up my little tripod and record videos at

It felt very important to me at the time because I had such a close understanding or as much of an understanding as you could about the virus and what was happening and infectious disease in general, that that gave me a lot of comfort and I wanted other people to understand it so that they could make decisions and feel like...

empowered in the decisions that they were making rather than scared of what was happening. So was that the real motivator initially was to sort of, you know, allay people's anxieties and fears? Yeah, I mean, I wanted very strongly that, you know, people can feel empowered by information, and they want to understand it, and they can understand it. And when you have that, you know, it's still it's not

necessarily less scary, but it's less anxiety inducing and you can feel a little bit more in control of what is happening. And I think that is really helpful for people to stay grounded. The videos are great and people should, you have a lot of followers, but people who have not followed you should watch these videos. How did you even begin to approach it? How did, what did you think? Yeah. I mean, I think it, so I mentioned in, there were like four days where we had stopped our studies in the hospital before we started doing these

clinical trials. And so in that four days, I didn't have a lot to do. And I made my first video where I just said, you know, does anybody want to understand what it means to flatten the curve or like understand, want to know what we know about COVID so far to explain to people. Um, and I had some friends say yes. So I made that first video, um,

People started asking questions and I started getting new followers and they said, you know, oh, what about this person who's talking about this? Or someone said that they saw this in this paper. And so I really just like was looking at my messages and starting to just make videos based on the stuff that people were asking me. And as new papers were being released, I mean, this was a huge time for preprint servers and trying to help people understand, you know, what makes a good paper and what makes a bad paper and,

how the scientific process works and how vaccine clinical trials work and that sort of thing. So yeah, it really, it was kind of a crowdsourcing situation of what do you want to learn about today? Were you surprised at the reaction that you got? I think so. I mean, I would think I was pleasantly surprised that people really did want to understand the

how things worked. I think it taught me a lot about the ways in which I shape how I give information to people so that they can understand it. But they did, people wanted to understand, you know, how does an mRNA vaccine work? Like what is actually happening in your cells? How is it different from other vaccines?

And so I think it was really cool to find out that people, you know, actually have a thirst for this knowledge because we do have not the best scientific literacy in this country. And so to find out that people really wanted to fill those gaps in and were willing and interested in asking questions was pretty cool. At some point, and I don't know when it was, it seemed like the thrust went from

for the whole country went from providing information to battling misinformation. Yeah. That there seem to be these parallel sort of sources of information out there, some like yours based on, you know, evidence, the data, your scientific background, and a lot of other things that were really fueled by conspiracy theories, which typically you think of as being, you know, these small pockets, but really gained a lot of steam. When did you first start to sense that?

I think it happened pretty early on for me. I think, you know, there were, there are some alternative medicine people who really saw this as an opportunity to push the things that they were selling, which is pretty expected. But then the conspiracy stuff happened really quickly. And I think particularly when it comes to something like COVID, that is like a world disrupting situation, people really want to be able to blame something, right? Like they do not

it is not appealing to have the answer be, this is a thing that just sometimes happens the way the 1918 flu pandemic happened. And so then you get, you know, lab leak theories, you get that this is engineered to, you know, take out a portion of the population. You get all of this stuff because it helps people understand

So how did you approach it then?

I mean, it's tricky because conspiracy theories and, you know, having someone to blame and all this stuff that elicits a really emotional reaction in people is really appealing. And when people have a visceral reaction, they want to share something really quickly without, like, looking into it all the time. And it's hard because the scientific explanation or the reasonable explanation, they're always...

a little bit more boring, you know, they're not as catchy and stuff. And so it really just takes a lot of patience to approach it from saying like, all right, let's think through this logically. You try to poke holes in the argument and just try to remind people, you know, that if something causes a visceral reaction in you, you should take a little extra time in looking into it because I think that's really hard for people. And that's how misinformation gets amplified so much.

is that someone has a strong emotional response to it and shares it without thinking about it, even if they're well-intentioned. And it's happened to me too sometimes. I always have to keep myself in check as well with certain things that confirm our biases or make us feel afraid or make us feel sad. So I think it's just a matter of reminding people to slow down and think through things for a second. You said that there were probably people who were benefiting from the idea of having a lot of misinformation out there.

maybe they were selling products or whatever it might be. Do you think that like when you look back now over the last few years, is that really what sort of fuels this? Because I'll tell you, Laurel, I'm a pretty simple guy. And I think to myself, I understand why people want to get people to do something, to engage in healthy behaviors, mitigate risks, take a vaccine, whatever it might be. When people are convinced not to do something, right?

not to engage in healthy behaviors, not to take a vaccine, whatever. That's a little confusing to me because I think it's just sheer profit, right? People are going to try and sell you something. Here they're telling you not to do something.

But I think what you're saying is that there was still probably people who were benefiting by selling products. I mean, yeah. So there are definitely, you see, you know, the Vax detox products or, you know, the COVID vaccine alternatives. Those were like huge things. You know, immune supplementation instead of getting vaccinated. Those, that's all like product lines that were beneficial. But to your point, you know, in this era of existence, attention is a currency, right?

see. Right. So you can make money in other ways, or even just the value of having a huge following from telling people don't take the vaccine. Don't wear a mask. Don't do this. You can build these communities. And then, uh, the attention itself is appealing. It can be parlayed into other things. You know, they don't have to necessarily be selling you a product related specifically to this, but you know, they get speaking engagements, they get, um,

brand deals for other stuff. Their platform becomes valuable to advertisers for other things and they'll sell their followers those things. So I think that is a huge pathway that is beneficial to people even if they're not directly selling you anything. I think also people...

it's a way to feel community, right? And I think especially in something like the context of COVID where you have the kind of government or these other entities telling you what to do. I always say, you know, it's hard to feel like the smartest person in the room when you're agreeing with everybody else in it. So there's a lot of power to people to say like, well, actually they don't want you to know this. And then people can feel community in that, in, you know, knowing something that these other people don't know. And I think that's super appealing to people.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break here. But when we come back, more from Laurel about taking on the new types of misinformation these days. This podcast is supported by Sleep Number.

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You have people now within the administration, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Bobby Kennedy, who are

who have said things that have been shown to be demonstrably wrong about vaccines. And I was just in West Texas, and part of the reason we're seeing these measles outbreaks is because of pockets of the population that are under-vaccinated. And one of the reasons people don't vaccinate is because they're concerned about things like autism. This came about, really, I think, started with fervor in the late 90s from a paper that was subsequently withdrawn, debunked,

But it led to all these studies. People said, okay, look, that paper was debunked, but hey, I'm worried enough about this now that let's study this. And so there was these large studies, hundreds of thousands of children. Their medical records were analyzed. They looked at vaccinated people. They looked at unvaccinated. They looked at the history. Like, do you have siblings with vaccination? All that to say that there was no, there's no correlation between vaccines and autism. Mm-hmm.

And yet, Laurel, we have a Secretary of Health in the United States, arguably, you know, the powerhouse when it comes to scientific discovery in the world, who is saying, I'm still not sure. I think that vaccines cause autism. Has said that actually recently. What are we to do with this? I mean, I don't know if there's a clear answer. Yeah. But what do you, how do you think about that? I, yeah, I think about it a lot. It's, it is interesting.

Frustrating and stressful. I think it's really hard that the person who is in the highest position of power when it comes to the health of our country is casting doubt on what are life-saving, incredible interventions for truly no reason. I mean, we not only have done so much research that shows that there is no connection between vaccines and autism, but the field of autism has research to support things that do work.

increase your chances of autism. It's, you know, there's genetics, there's environmental factors, there's all this sort of stuff. And so it's not only frustrating for the idea that people will build this hesitancy to use these vaccines that are so critical to maintaining the health of our country, but also that they, you know, will ignore the potential things that do impact the

autism rates or the things that we need to do to help. And so I think it's, I don't have an answer, unfortunately, but I do think you and I as science communicators will be pretty busy for the next four years trying to clarify statements and make sure people understand what the science actually shows. Do you get despondent? I mean, are you invigorated to do even more given what's happening in the country overall? Or do you like, have you wanted to just say, look,

It's been fun. Yeah. But this is a brick wall that I can no longer pound my head against. Yeah. I mean, of course there's part of me that's like, man, after five years, I thought I was going to be like off the hook. You know, my Instagram was just going to be vacation photos. It would be great. But yeah,

I do feel very passionately about this. I feel very passionately about people getting accurate information and feeling empowered in the decisions that they make for themselves and their families. So I'm going to keep doing what I do. And I'm going to build my network of people that I trust so that I can tell people, you know, it's a science communication is a team effort.

And it really is important that you find a solid core of people who are giving good information, good and accurate information so that you have someone to turn to. Because I feel very...

I feel very optimistic about the passion that a lot of people on social media have, a lot of scientists on social media have for giving people good information and combating this. So I think I take a lot of comfort in the fact that this is going to be a team effort. And the only reason that we're doing it is because we feel very passionately about helping everyone. You know, whether you want to believe in what I'm saying or not, it will benefit you and I will be here for you when and if you're ready to listen to it. I'll be on team Laurel.

I get behind that. Thank you. Do you think this is a pendulum swing, or do you think we are heading towards this trajectory of increased misinformation? You look at X, for example. I don't really do social media much. I don't surf it much. I am definitely, I mean, I'm a lot older than you, and I think it just wasn't something that was part of my

time really at all, even as a approaching middle-aged person, I guess middle-aged now. But

Do you still, you do Instagram. What about X? Do you, do you, do you find places where it's just, it's become too much of a cesspool? Yeah, I'm off of X. I just, I think that the, the effort versus the benefits are not really there. I think the people who are going to be actually genuinely receptive to learning are seeking their information through things that are a little bit more neutral at the moment, like Instagram or Tik TOK, you know, the scientific community as a whole kind of all moved to blue sky. So I have the, the,

things I was using X for, I now get on Blue Sky, which is great. So yeah, I think there are certain places that I just, I can't see the benefit of, but there was a lot of talk about, you know, leaving Instagram because Mark Zuckerberg has decided that Meta is not doing fact-checking anymore and this sort of stuff. And I just think, you know, if the people who are committed to evidence-based research leave all these platforms, then it becomes an echo chamber. So there are certain places that

And who knows, Instagram might become untenable the way X did. But for now, I think it's really important to stay on those platforms so that, you know, the people who are asking questions in good faith have good resources that they could potentially find. Yeah. I mean, so if you're talking to the other science communicators out there, are there some tripwires you tell them to avoid?

I emphasize stressing the limitations of what we know, you know, stressing that things change. Those are important. If you're somebody who is, you know, not in the scientific community and you're looking at social media, things that I would tell you to look out for, because people always want, people ask me how to spot bad science, you know,

First of all, if somebody is eliciting a super emotional response in you, that's not great science communication. Usually, oftentimes, that is also tied to if they are selling a product to you. If their post is telling you about if they have invented a problem that they are going to sell you the cure for, that's a huge red flag. I think the biggest one that I think about right now is parasite cleanses, like if

you live in the United States, the chances you have a parasitic infection that needs to be cleansed is so infinitesimally low. But that is a huge industry right now. So things like that. I think if something sounds too good or too bad to be true, it probably is. Unfortunately, science and the scientific process is kind of boring. It's very rare that we have like a huge breakthrough that's really exciting. So most of the stuff you're going to hear from legitimate scientists is not going to be like

elicit a super strong emotion from you. So I think those are all really important things to look out for. And humility, like you talked about before, I do think this idea of not matching the emotion of a huge emotional response is important. And, you know, I mean, I think this idea of living, being comfortable with

with nuance and being comfortable with a little bit of uncertainty, embracing uncertainty. Yeah. It's challenging. Also, it's important, a skill that I think everyone needs to learn is to check the visceral reaction of like, well, it hasn't happened to me. So does that actually happen? You know, there's a big whole world of experiences out there. And so I think that's really an important thing, nuance and context to keep in mind. Yeah. I saw, I heard about that a lot with the measles. There's so many infectious disease doctors who

They've never taken care of measles. Yeah. They've never seen it. And these are, you know, people who are experienced, long-tenured infectious disease doctors. And questions we get is, hey, everyone got measles. It's not that big a deal.

then you remind them that several hundred people died, hundreds of thousands got sick, you know, every year. It's like you're a victim of your own success in some ways. I know. And I also, like, I made a video about, you know, because the claim now is that getting measles is actually good for you. And I read through all the papers that they cite and kind of tear them down. But somebody commented, measles has killed like one person in the last 12 years in the United States. And you're like, that's...

think through why that might be guys like, come on. Yeah, exactly. This is a hypothetical, but if you just looked at a hundred percent of the population and you say, I'm making it up, but, but a certain percentage of them are just chaos creators. They are just shit starters. Chaos is the currency for them.

Another percentage are people who are naysayers, but they are good faith naysayers as you as you've alluded to I'm really concerned about this for my kids for my parents for myself Whatever it may be and then the rest of the people are like hey look we've looked at all the scientific data We've we've done the homework we've looked at the evidence and we've arrived on the side of you should do these public health practices and

Any idea how big each of these buckets are? Like how many people out there percentage-wise do you think are just chaos creators? I actually think it's a pretty small percentage. And I say that, you know, when you look at,

kind of maybe the anti-vaccine community as a whole, you just find repeaters. You find it's all the same people who are, you know, being quoted, quoting each other, doing these, this quote unquote research, these questionable papers, promoting it and stuff, because I do think it's a small community. I think it's just really loud. And that can trick people into thinking it's this huge community. I think the, probably the biggest percentage is going to be

And they're probably actually pretty close to each other, but the people who are on the side of science and scientific research and the people who have legitimate questions or really want to understand, but maybe the only thing that they've been exposed to is this really loud contingency of people who are trying to start problems. I do, I think in the public polling that we see, and Rollins just did a Gallup poll about people's attitudes towards health issues

And you do really surprisingly find that a lot more people are on the side of wanting to understand things or caring about these public health topics than people who, you know, are caring about kind of the contradictory or contrarian stuff that is out there. I find like it's weird sometimes, Laurel. The social media world, again, which I don't do a lot of, but that compared to the real world, IRL, as the kids call it in real life. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't know what to make of that. I feel like maybe the social media world is highly manufactured. Maybe it's the anonymity that people have there that they say things that they otherwise wouldn't say in the real world. But did you have situations where people you knew, like actual friends of yours or colleagues of yours, took great issue with things that you were saying on social media or friendships or anything that you had to abandon as a result of that? Hmm.

I mean, I think there are some people that I had like social media relationships who I saw, you know, reposting stuff that was so inflammatory that I just couldn't really understand, especially like, you know me and you know what I do for work. And yet you you're still posting this stuff. But I think over directed at you or just in general, you're saying just in general, you know, just like the scientific misinformation that people would post.

But I think overall, like the people that I know in real life, even if we have different, like I have some friends who are into more woo woo healing and stuff. And I feel like we can have conversations about where the place is for that. And you know why I do what I do or support, um,

you know, the interventions that I support. And so I do think a lot of people have been actually very receptive to that. And I think it's important to me because there are some people I can see who, you know, maybe don't get it, but could be on the cusp of understanding it or their, you know, values could change or align over time. And so I want to keep them close because I want to give them the option if they want to ask me questions or get clarification, or if I can, you know, nicely engage with them when I see them posting stuff that is maybe, you

you know, not the most accurate. I think that's really important to maintain that option for people too. When you're having discussions about tough topics with family, with friends, how do you approach it nowadays? Whether it be COVID or USAID funding or politics in general or climate change, do you approach it differently as a result of everything you've learned? Yeah, I mean, I think I just approach it from a place of curiosity. I want to understand what

What people have seen or heard or read that make them think the things that they are thinking. So I can try to walk through that logic. Where did you hear that? Yeah. Tell me what you mean by that. Where did you hear that? You know, why? Why? I'm interested. Why do you think that that's the case? So that I can have an understanding of how I can approach it to try to give them, you know, a

the alternative perspective or the alternative, you know, statistics or facts that they might not be aware of or to ask, you know, well, why do you think that that is a credible source but this is not? To try to help people, you know, think through things themselves because the person who is most likely to convince them or change their mind is themselves, right? So you just want to give them the tools to help them understand what you're trying to say so that they can factor that into their decision making and the way they think about things.

You've helped a lot of people, Laurel. Do you reflect on that at all? I mean, you don't strike me as somebody who's very navel-gazing and sort of self-congratulatory, but...

You probably helped a lot of people. It is very nice. Every once in a while, someone will recognize me in public because it is my face, you know, on my Instagram and come up and thank me. And, you know, people send nice messages, especially now. I think everyone is a little bit scared that I might just be like, forget it. I'm not doing this again. So I have been getting a lot of nice messages about how helpful people found my information during COVID. And I do, I love that and appreciate it. It's hard when you're recording by yourself in your kitchen to know if you're connecting with people. So that has been nice. And you're happy? Yeah.

I am. I do. I think, I mean, I think I have the same anxieties and stress that everybody else does, but overall, you know, very happy and very happy to help. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. And if you want to hear more from Laurel, you can listen to her podcast. It's called Health Wanted, and you can listen to it wherever podcasts are found.

Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Aaron Mathewson, Jennifer Lai, Grace Walker, Lori Gallaretta, Jesse Remedios, Sophia Sanchez, and Kira Dering. Andrea Kane is our medical writer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Amanda Seeley is our showrunner. Dan DeZula is our technical director. And the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Liktai.

With support from Jameis Andrest, John D'Annura, Haley Thomas, Alex Manassari, Robert Mathers, Laini Steinhardt, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namaru. Special thanks to Ben Tinker and Nadia Kanang of CNN Health and Katie Hinman.

There's a reason the Sleep Number smart bed is the number one best bed for couples. It's because you can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. Firmer or softer on either side, Sleep Number does that. One side cooler and the other side warmer, Sleep Number does that too. You have to feel it to believe it. Sleep better together. Why choose a Sleep Number smart bed? So you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. And now save 40% on the new Sleep Number special edition smart bed. Except.

exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you. See store or sleepnumber.com for details.

I'm CNN's Francesca Street, and this week on our podcast, Chance Encounters, is all about friendship. Between that lonely American traveler Lindsay Debates and Doug Gist. I mean, she's cute, but loud. Big brother, protector, is the vibe that I felt. That fellow American she ran into on the street of Itaewon in Seoul, South Korea, back in the year 2000. Follow

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