Debunking the Disinformation: A Case Study for COVID19
In this post, we’ll address how to debunk bad information and the best ways to parse through dubious claims on social media, whether or not you’re a scientist.
With any public health crisis, comes a rise in misinformation surrounding that topic. COVID19 is no different. By now, probably everyone has seen suspicious posts about COVID19 circulating on social media. These posts often contain medical advice or promote “secret cures.” Sometimes they are blatantly wrong and other times it’s more difficult to disentangle accurate from inaccurate information. As a scientist, I am trained to be skeptical—to question new information I receive—and use my knowledge and critical thinking skills to determine if a piece of news or data is trustworthy. But you don’t need to be a scientist to spot these misinformation posts! In this article, I’ll walk you through an example of blatant COVID19 misinformation and how I debunked it. I’ll teach you useful tips and tricks for recognizing these falsehoods and improving your critical thinking skills. Let’s debunk this BS!
Image courtesy of DLPNG.com
But first, what is misinformation anyways?
Per the Collins English dictionary, misinformation is “wrong information which is given to someone, often in a deliberate attempt to make them believe something which is not true.” Sometimes misinformation is spread deliberately and sometimes it is not. For example, your well-meaning relative may cluelessly pass along medical misinformation, not realizing it’s incorrect. However, more insidious agents can purposefully generate and disseminate misinformation. Another term used to describe misinformation spread with intent to harm is disinformation. If you want to understand more about misinformation vs. disinformation, this article from Scientific American breaks it down elegantly. But for simplicity, I’ll use disinformation and misinformation interchangeably.
Image from Scientific American illustrating the difference between misinformation or disinformation. Original credit: Jen Christiansen; Source: Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policymaking, by Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan. Council of Europe, October 2017.
A (truly amazing) piece of COVID19 misinformation
Ever since SARS-CoV-2 hit the news, friends and family have been sending me relevant misinformation they see on social media. Today, a family member sent me an example so bad I knew it would make a perfect case study for how to debunk disinformation. Ready? Okay, here goes. Pictured below is the piece of misinformation I received this morning:
An example of misinformation about COVID19.
Debunking the BS
First things first: Put on your critical thinking cap. It’s time to get skeptical.
Let’s get started. In the first sentence, we are told that the “corona virus” has a pH between 5.5 and 8.5. Even if you don’t know what pH means (don’t worry, we’ll get there), there’s already a clue this information may be incorrect. In the text, the author misspells coronavirus by breaking it into two separate words (i.e. “corona virus”). Here’s my PSA for the day: Coronavirus is one word. If you see it misspelled, take that as a hint the following text may be wrong.
Next, the author inserts a research citation from a legitimate academic journal. However, they do not cite a specific article or explain how this citation supports their ideas. This makes it difficult for someone without a science or research background to find the original source. Because I’m curious, I found and read the original article cited. Here’s a screenshot of the title and abstract:
Screenshot of an article published in the Journal of Virology.
This research paper title includes words like pH, coronavirus, and mutations, which all sound very scientific. Don’t let this scare you from digging a bit further. In the very first sentence in the abstract, the phrase “pH from 5.5 to 8.5” appears. Look familiar? Here’s why; it’s the very same range quoted in the original misinformation post. It seems the person who wrote the misinformation post just lifted the pH range right out of the research article with no context, making the citation meaningless. Also, we learn this research paper isn’t even about SARS-CoV-2! How could it be, since it’s from 1991 and SARS-CoV-2 did not emerge until 2019. Instead, this paper was written about a coronavirus found in mice—specifically mouse hepatitis virus type 4 (MHV4). There’s nothing wrong with using related animal viruses to model and better understand human viruses. However, it’s lazy and unscientific to assume a novel coronavirus (in this case SARS-CoV-2) acts exactly like a mouse coronavirus.
What is a pH anyways?
To understand what is wrong about the pH “data” in the original misinformation post, you first must know what a pH is. In a water-based solution, the pH is a measure of how many free hydrogen ions [H+] are present. We use the pH scale to indicate how acidic or basic a solution is. Acids have a greater concentration of [H+] while bases have more [OH-]. The pH scale functions from 0-14, with 0 being the most acidic, 14 being the most basic, and 7 indicating a neutral pH. Importantly, the pH scale is logarithmic. This means a solution with a pH of 4 is ten times more acidic than a solution with a pH of 5. Just remember, a low pH value indicates an acidic solution, while a high pH value indicates a solution is basic (also called alkaline).
Image depicting the pH scale and where common acids and bases fit on the scale. Credit: Image from UCDavis ChemWiki, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US.
Let’s go back to the original misinformation post. The author states, “All we need to do, to beat corona virus (misspelled again!)...” Before I get to debunking, I want to highlight a commonly used technique in misinformation and pseudoscience. Notice how the author writes “all we need to do”? This is a red flag. Whenever I see something claiming a simple cure or “just do this one thing!” I know it’s probably wrong or, at best, oversimplified and inaccurate. A good rule of thumb is if something seems too good to be true, then it’s likely too good to be true.
The author next asserts how the alkaline diet can help beat the coronavirus. At least I think that’s what they were trying to do. In brief, purveyors of the alkaline diet incorrectly believe that one should “alkalinize” the body to offset acids (which they think are bad) by eating only certain foods. The alkaline diet has been touted to cure cancer and heal your gut—this claim is wrong. Since the alkaline diet has been thoroughly debunked as a cancer treatment (read this article to learn more), I won’t go into it further except to say eating certain foods won’t change your blood pH and won’t make you less susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2.
Next, the author of this misinformation post commits their most obvious error. The “data”—a list of various foods with their accompanying pH value—is blatantly wrong. Remember how the pH scale functions in a range from 0-14? Well, two of the listed foods (avocado and dandelions) have a pH value listed that’s not physically possible! Furthermore, I fact-checked the pH values for the list of foods in the original post (I did this in under 5 minutes by Googling and looking at reputable sources). Every single pH value listed in the original post was wrong! Misinformation does not get more clear cut than this. For future reference, if you spot such an obvious and egregious error, you’ve correctly identified misinformation.
Overly simplistic health advice
The final section of this misinformation post is overly simplistic health advice. The author states that you can know you have COVID19 if you have an itchy throat, dry throat, or dry cough. Again, they are incorrect. Just because you have a cough does not mean you have coronavirus. To be correctly diagnosed with COVID19, doctors and scientists must run clinical laboratory tests and identify SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. And no, drinking warm water won’t prevent a coronavirus infection (remember, SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory pathogen and needs to enter your lungs, not your dietary tract, to cause pneumonia). Clearly, the author of the misinformation post does not understand COVID19 diagnostics and thus, their “medical” advice should be disregarded.
Virology sidebar: Why do we care about pH and coronaviruses?
If the cited pH and mouse coronavirus research paper wasn’t about the benefits of eating alkaline foods, what was it about? Well, it turns out that pH actually IS quite important for the cellular entry mechanism of many viruses. Inside cells there are different compartments and these compartments have distinct pHs. Sometimes when viruses enter a cell, they need to escape from an internal cellular compartment like an endosome. Oftentimes, this process is activated when the virus enters a low pH environment. The low pH can activate a viral fusion protein, allowing the virus to enter the cell cytoplasm and begin replication. Coronaviruses, including the original SARS-CoV, have been shown to use a pH-dependent entry mechanism. So while pH can be an important factor for viral entry, the way it’s referenced in the original misinformation post is incorrect.
A visual example of pH-dependent viral escape (Influenza virus) from an endosome into the cytoplasm from Viral Zone.
Tips for identifying scientific misinformation
We have now thoroughly debunked the misinformation example shown above. To be fair, this was easy to do because this post was just so blatantly wrong. But what about other posts, where the misinformation may be harder to spot? How can a non-scientist recognize BS disguised as scientific advice? Here are my tips for spotting misinformation:
Look for obvious spelling errors, especially of scientific terminology. We all can make spelling mistakes, but when a scientific or medical term is misspelled, this could indicate misinformation.
Check the sources. Ask where the article/post came from. Did a friend write it? A friend of a friend of a friend? Is this source reputable (i.e. is it written by a medical or science expert)? If a research paper is cited in the piece, does the author do so correctly? Be skeptical of any posts that begin with “I’m not a doctor/virologist/epidemiologist BUT...” That’s an indicator the author is stepping outside of their lane and area of expertise. Taking a few minutes to assess the credibility of a source is critical for identifying misinformation.
Does the article suggest a fix that seems too good to be true? Be suspicious of any post claiming an easy or unknown fix. Pseudoscience is rampant with miracle claims. There is no easy cure for COVID19. If someone suggests otherwise, that’s disinformation.
Is there blatantly wrong information in the post? Like we saw in the example above, misinformation contains inaccurate information (and/or information taken out of context). But how can you identify if data or listed facts are wrong if you are not a scientist? Sometimes a quick fact-check will do the trick. This was true for correctly identifying the pH of certain foods. Other times it can be a bit trickier. I would recommend Wikipedia and Kahn Academy as a good place to start—they are great resources for initial background reading.
Phone a friend. Sometimes you just need a little help. If you’ve fact-checked to the best of your ability and still remain uncertain if a post you’re reading is accurate, it’s okay to ask for help. Reach out to your science friends! Since SARS-CoV-2 has emerged, I’ve provided feedback regarding dubious social media posts to several dozen friends and family. Something I’ve learned as a scientist is that it’s always best to admit when you don’t know something and ask for help.
A wonderful reminder from XKCD.
With that, remember to stay curious, be skeptical, and think like a scientist!
Jillian Carmichael, PhD
Jillian received her PhD in Virology from Penn State’s College of Medicine in 2019, where she studied molecular mechanisms of Herpes Simplex Virus spread. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Lee lab at Mount Sinai. As the lone herpesvirologist in a paramyxovirus lab, Jillian is working to develop new methods to manipulate the Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) genome to better understand its cellular tropism and latency. When she’s not in the lab (or WFH during the pandemic), Jillian spends her time parenting her two young kids in NYC. Sometimes she runs for fun, but mostly she chases after her kiddos.
Twitter: @ViralCarmichael