As mass media evolves into “masses of media”, what are the implications for our health?

To the Editor: Sweet and Simons are right to raise concerns about the quality and reliability of the health information available on the internet in this new digital age.1 Similar to the “old media” paradigm, the driving pressure is to maximise readership, thereby maximising advertising revenue. The task of providing content of sufficient volume and quality to meet the needs of readers permanently connected to the internet appears overwhelming.

As an example of the way such pressure damages the quality of health reporting, we need look no further than the way Sweet’s health blog, Croakey, and its parent publication, Crikey, dealt with the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. After initially calling for a rational discussion about the merits of the population-based vaccination program,2 Croakey and Crikey published a series of articles that either trivialised the severity of the H1N1 outbreak or focused on perceived problems of the vaccine or the program. There was no corresponding focus on possible benefits of vaccination or solutions implemented to minimise perceived problems with the program.

Former Minister for Health Michael Wooldridge had a piece supportive of vaccination published,3 but this was immediately followed by a response from Sweet suggesting, without supporting evidence, that he was acting as an agent of CSL.4 So effective at rallying anti-vaccination supporters has Crikey’s campaign been that members of the anti-vaccine Australian Vaccination Network now copy in Sweet and Crikey on correspondence to the federal Minister for Health denouncing H1N1 vaccines.5

Although it is unlikely this negative reporting will have a major impact on H1N1 vaccine coverage, it adds a veneer of credibility to vaccine conspiracy material widely available on the internet. Sweet and Crikey would do well to consider the wider public health implications, beyond improving readership and advertising profit, of pushing their controversial and strident anti-H1N1 vaccine message.