WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I study rumors.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not tabloid gossip

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or the kind of rumors that are making
stock markets crash --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or soar,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the kind of rumors
that effect your health ...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the world's health.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like eating a lot of garlic

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or drinking a lot of water

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is going to help protect
us from coronavirus --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if only.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Rumors have a bad reputation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There seen as "not fact," wrong
or "just a rumor."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But I've studied rumors for years,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and one thing I've learned
is that they all have a story,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and often, an important story.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One of the most moving or alarming
rumor episodes that I investigated

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was in Northern Nigeria.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was working with UNICEF's global
immunization program.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And it was the rumors themselves
that I found so alarming;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it was the global impact of those rumors.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The rumors were suspecting

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that the polio vaccine
was actually a contraceptive;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it was controlling populations --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or maybe it caused AIDS.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No, no, maybe it's the CIA
spying on them or counting them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, why else would they have people
knocking on their door again and again

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with the same polio vaccine?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When children were dying of measles,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
no one was coming with measles vaccines.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This wasn't about getting the facts right.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This was about trust.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was about broken trust.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Why so much distrust?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It wasn't the mothers who were
particularly distrusting, actually.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was the local leaders,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the religious leaders,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the local political leaders.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was the governor of the state of Kano

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who decided to boycott

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the entire polio eradication
effort in that state ...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for 11 months.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Why such distrust?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Well, it was 2003.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was two years after 9/11.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And they were convinced that the West,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and particularly the United States,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was at war with Muslims.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And they knew that the West,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and particularly the United States,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was a huge supporter --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and funder --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of the global polio
eradication initiative.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They had their reasoning.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That lack of trust,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that "just a rumor or two"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
cost the polio eradication program
500 million dollars

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to reset the clock,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to regain the progress lost
during those 11 months

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and beyond.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Nigerian strain of the polio virus
traveled to over 20 countries

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as far as Indonesia.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The cost of a rumor.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Nigeria episode was one
of many episodes that I investigated

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when I was with UNICEF

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and earned the title of the director
of UNICEF's fire department.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
At that point I realized I never
really had enough time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was too busy putting out the fires

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and not enough time to understand

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what was driving not just
the individual episodes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but why was there an epidemic
of these happening around the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I left UNICEF and went
back to research --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
applied research --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I set up in 2010 what I called
the Vaccine Confidence Project

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I convened antrhopologists,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
epidemiologists,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
psychologists,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
digital media specialists

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and mathematical modelers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We set ourselves the task

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to investigate historic
episodes of rumors

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and their impacts,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from trying to figure out
what were the early signals,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what were the amplifying factors

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the impacts,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how did they get traction,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so we could start to understand
what we should be looking for,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how we could help governments

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and immunization programs
be more alert and responsive

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to early signals of problems.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was an early warning system.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In 2015 we developed
a vaccine confidence index.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's a survey trying to investigate
to what extent do people agree

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or disagree that vaccines are important,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they're safe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they're effective --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they work --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and somehow they're compatible
with my religious beliefs.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We've run this with over hundreds
of thousands of people around the world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
trying to get our finger on the pulse
of confidence and trust,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but also, more importantly, looking
at when that trust goes up or down,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because we want to see
when it starts to decline,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's the time to jump in,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to get there before there's a crisis
like the Nigerian one.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We also set up 24/7 media and social media
monitoring around the world --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
multilanguage,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
listening for what's going on
on vaccine conversations,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
trying to pick up early concerns
or changes in sentiment

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we should be paying attention to.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We've created an ecosystem
of different types of information

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to try to understand
what are the public thinking

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and how can we engage?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We look for early signals.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When we find one,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we have global network of collaborators
in a number of countries

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who have more local 
intelligence in that setting,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to try to understand:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is this signal misinformation

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or is something brewing
that we should know about?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In London, we have a bigger picture;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we watch the swarms of rumors
not just traveling locally

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but jumping countires.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We've seen them jump
from Japan over to Columbia,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
through Europe and around.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They move.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We live in a hyper-connected environment.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One of the things
that we found fascinating,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we've learned
a lot in the last 10 years --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this is our 10th anniversary,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this didn't start yesterday,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this rumor problem --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and one of the things we learned

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is in our global monitoring,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that Europe is the most
skeptical region in the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
France won the prize actually.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
By far.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And actually some of those rumors
have traveled to other parts of the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But we were trying to understand Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Hm.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Why Europe?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I thought the US was really --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
had some of the most skepticism,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but boy, I was wrong.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And a political scientist,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a colleague we work with,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
John Kennedy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he took our data from 28
European countries

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and he looked at it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and correlated it
with political opinion polling.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And what did he find?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He found that people who are most likely
to vote for a populous party

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
also were the ones the most likely
to strongly disagree

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that vaccines were important,
safe or effective.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What did we learn?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Vaccines cannot escape
the politcal and social turbulance

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that surrounds it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Scientists were unprepared
for this tsunami of doubt

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and questions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and distrust.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
why are vaccines so ripe for resistance?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Well, we identified a number of things,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but one:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they're highly mediated by government
that require, regulates

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and sometimes recommmends vaccines,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or often recommends or sometimes requires.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Big business makes vaccines,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and neither institution,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
government or big business,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
are high in the trust ranks these days.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then there's scientists
who discover and develop vaccines,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they're pretty elite

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and not accessible to the general public,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at least the language they speak.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Third, we're in a hyper-connected
environment with social media these days,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and people can share their unfettered
views, concerns, anxieties and worries

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and find a lot of people
that think the way they do,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and think maybe their worries
are worth paying attention to.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And finally,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
vaccines touch every single
life on the planet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What other health intervention,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
besides water,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
touches every single life?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So if you're looking
for something to disrupt,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's a perfect stage.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Perhaps that's one of the reasons
that we need to pay more attention

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and rebuild our trust in issues.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
People are asking all kinds of questions.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They're asking,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
why are vaccines --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and these are the kinds of things
we're hearing in our social media --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
why can't my child have
a personalized vaccination schedule?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What the wisdom of so many vaccines?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What about all those ingredients
and preservatives?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These are not crazy people,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they're not uneducated;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they're actually worried mothers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But some of them have come
to me and said we feel ignored,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we feel judged if we ask a question,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we even feel demonized

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that maybe we're part of some
antivaccine group.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we have some listening to do.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And maybe that's why last year,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
there was research that found

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that in six months in 2019,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
online --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this was with hundreds --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
100 million different users
on social media --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
although the numbers of individuals
who expressed in their online groups

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they were positive,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as groups,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the ones who are the most negative

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
were recruiting
the conversations in the middle

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that were undecided about whether
they wanted to get vaccines.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The highly negative --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what we might call the antivaccine groups,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
were recruiting the undecided
at a rate 500 percent faster

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than the pro-vaccine groups.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
500 percent faster.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They were more nimble,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they were responsive

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they were listening.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Most people believe that vaccines are good

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they believe in their importance.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But that belief is under attack.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need to build in more
opportunities for conversation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And there are ways to do it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's not easy for some
health professionals

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to have conversations where
their authority is questioned.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's uncomfortable.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And they're just too busy
to listen to all these questions.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But we need to to do something about that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because we're losing
a lot of concerned parents

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that just want a conversation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We should get volunteers trained
to sit in waiting rooms,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to be on hotlines,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to have online chat forums,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to have chat boxes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In younger kids,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with younger kids in school,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
teach them about immune systems

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and teach them that actually,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know that vaccine
your little brother got?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Well, it just inspired
your natural immune system.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's a great thing and this is why.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need to build that confidence;

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we need to listen.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Despite all this questioning --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and there's a lot of it --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I probably hear more
than a lot of people --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I am an optimist.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And my optimism is with
a younger generation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The younger generation who actually now
are becoming very aware

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of the risks of social media,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the false news,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the false identities,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they're starting to embrace science.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And some of them are a group of children
whose mothers refused to vaccinate them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Last spring of 2019,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
18-year-old Ethan Lindenburg
went on Reddit

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and put out a post.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"My mother doesn't believe in vaccines.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She's really worried they cause autism.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In fact, she strong believes that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But I'm 18.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm a senior in high school.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I can drive a car,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I can vote,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I can go get my own vaccine.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Can someone tell me where to get it?"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That post went viral.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It started to get a whole
younger movement going.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I saw Ethan speak at a conference,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Global Vaccine Summit
at the EU last fall.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He spoke eloquently,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I was impressed

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in front of a whole forum.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He told his personal story,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then he said to the group,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he said, "You know, everybody
talks about misinformation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but I want to tell you about
a different kind of misinformation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and that's misinformation that says
that people like my mother,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who is loving mother,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is bad person because
she doesn't give me vaccines.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Well, I want to tell all of you
that she didn't give me a vaccine

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because she loves me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and because she believed that that
was the best thing for me.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think differently

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I will never change her mind,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but she's not a bad person."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That was the message from a teenager.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Empathy, kindness and understanding.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have an abundance
of scientific information

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to debunk false rumors.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That's not our problem.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have a relationship problem,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not a misinformation problem.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Misiniformation is a symptom,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not the cause.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If people trust,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they'll put up with a little risk
to avert a much bigger one.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The one thing that I want and I hope for

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is that we as a medical
and health community

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
have the moral courage and humility

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to productively engage,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like Ethan,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with those who disagree with us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I hope so.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thank you.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause and cheers)