Social media posts have falsely claimed that a recent uptick in hepatitis among children is due to the coronavirus vaccine, the BBC reports.
Most of the children impacted by the disease were under 5 years old and weren't inoculated, according to health agencies monitoring the situation. But that hasn't stopped the claim from proliferating on social media.
What are the facts
On April 5, the WHO was informed of 10 cases of hepatitis in children under 10 in Scotland. By April 8, 74 cases had been identified in the UK. The WHO continues to receive dozens of reports of cases of childhood hepatitis, with one case detected in a 10-year-old child in Belgium.
It is still unclear exactly what the cause is for the spike in cases. The WHO has posited that it could be due to the adenovirus, which usually causes a cold. No link has been established between the coronavirus vaccine and hepatitis, according to Belgian virologist Steven Van Gucht.
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Nonetheless, posts on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit have claimed that Covid-19 vaccines cause hepatitis in children, with one Twitter user pointing to a possible link without offering evidence.
Kids are getting hepatitis. It’s being caused be an adenovirus. J&J had an adenovirus vector. Couldn’t possibly be related.
— Dr. Brad Campbell, DC, DABCI (@DrBradCampbell) April 22, 2022
A Reddit post bases its misinformation on the fact that an adenovirus is used in AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. However, the adenovirus in the vaccines are carriers that don't cause harm as they have been modified so cannot replicate and spread the disease.
The effect of lockdown
Some posts have speculated about the effects of lockdown on children, claiming that children are usually exposed to infections but the lockdowns limited exposure, leading to exaggerated reactions to the adenovirus. Yet this theory lacks medical basis.
Dr Conor Meehan, senior lecturer in microbiology at Nottingham Trent University, told the BBC that he agreed that not being exposed to germs in the first few years of a child's life could affect their immune systems. However, he denied that a weakened immune system would lead to cases of hepatitis.
Instead, the expert Dr Meehan suggested that something else is at play, such as a mutated virus. But more research is needed before coming to any definite conclusions.
Dispelling false information
However, the lack of substantiated explanations leaves space for misinformation, which can erode trust in institutions and institutions charged with safeguarding public welfare.
Once distrust takes root, it can be hard to escape from due to confirmation bias, a pattern that makes people look for information which confirms what they already believe.
Professor Gina Neff, senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, explained the difficulty to the BBC: "When we search online, we feel as if we're looking at a library and all the world's information is available to us."
Moreover, our online searches are influenced by our search history, which serves to perpetuate the circulation of misleading information.
