THE PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS OF MEDIA MISINFORMATION, DISINFORMATION, AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES: A CASE FOR BIOETHICAL INTERVENTION

Abstract

The following thesis will set out to argue that misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracies, in tandem with today’s advanced communication technology, pose a dire threat to the future of public health, biotechnological advancement, safe medical procedures, and ethical evidence-based legislation and policy. Each chapter will explore different points in public health and medicine that misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracies have already begun to shift or disrupt in ways that are eroding safe and effective care. Misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories should be seen more broadly outside of the spheres of Big Tech and First Amendment discourse, and instead understood as a public health concern of which there are ways to inoculate, treat, and mitigate public spread. Much as we have come to understand that gun violence requires more than a judicial approach, so too must we come to understand misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories as an indicator of failing health in a population.