Netha Hussain | |
|---|---|
 Hussain in 2012 | |
| Born | 11 June 1990 Kunnamangalam, Kerala, India |
| Occupation(s) | Medical doctor, researcher, Wikipedian and scientist |
| Spouse | Anver Hisham |
| Awards | Women in Open Source Award (2020) |
| Website | nethahussain |
Netha Hussain (born 11 June 1990) is an India-born medical doctor and Wikipedian [1] known for her efforts to tackle the spread of misinformation in Wikipedia about the origin of the coronavirus. [2]
Hussain was born on 11 June 1990 in Kunnamangalam in the state of Kerala. [3]
Hussain embarked in her Wikipedia career in 2010 when she was still at first-year medical student at the Calicut Medical College in Kozhikode. [3] She pursued her higher studies in 2016 by joining the University of Gothenburg. She also worked as a blogger at Huffington Post until 2018. [4] In 2020, she obtained her PhD in clinical neuroscience from the University of Gothenburg. [5]
In mid 2020, she began focusing on creating and curating Wikipedia articles related to the COVID-19 pandemic in English, Malayalam and Swedish language editions. [6] She has written nearly 30 articles on Wikipedia relating to COVID-19 including List of unproven methods against COVID-19 with the purpose of preventing the spread of misinformation about the pandemic in internet and social media platforms. [7]
She also launched WikiProject in order to improve and expand the information regarding the topics about the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines and about the COVID-19 vaccine safety on Wikipedia. [8] [9]
She received the 2020 Women in Open Source Academic Award, recognising her contributions regarding disseminating and sharing medical knowledge and information in Wikipedia. [10] [11] She also received honorable special mention from the United Nations through its official Twitter handle in 2020. [3] She received a Wikimedian of the Year 2021 Honourable Mention during the 2021 virtual Wikimania conference. [12] [13]
Joseph Michael Mercola is an American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet business personality. He markets largely unproven dietary supplements and medical devices. On his website, Mercola and colleagues advocate unproven and pseudoscientific alternative health notions including homeopathy and opposition to vaccination. These positions have received persistent criticism. Mercola is a member of several alternative medicine organizations as well as the political advocacy group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which promotes scientifically discredited views about medicine and disease. He is the author of two books.
Krista Ford Haynes is a former Canadian professional women's American football player and conspiracy theorist. She is a daughter of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and niece of former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. She was the captain of the Toronto Triumph, a team in the Legends Football League.
Sherri J. Tenpenny is an American anti-vaccination activist and conspiracy theorist who promulgates the disproven hypothesis that vaccines cause autism. An osteopathic physician, she is the author of four books opposing vaccination. Her license to practice medicine in Ohio was suspended in August, 2023. A 2015 lecture tour of Australia was canceled due to a public outcry over her views on vaccination, which oppose established scientific consensus. A 2021 Center for Countering Digital Hate analysis concluded that Tenpenny is among the top twelve people spreading COVID-19 misinformation and pseudoscientific anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. She has falsely asserted that the vaccines magnetize people and connect them with cellphone towers.
The Wikimedian of the Year is an annual award that honors Wikipedia editors and other contributors to Wikimedia projects to highlight major achievements within the Wikimedia movement, established in August 2011 by Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales. Wales selects the recipients and honors them at Wikimania, an annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation—except in 2020, 2021, and 2022 when the recipients were announced at online meetings as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2011 to 2017, the award was named Wikipedian of the Year.
Children's Health Defense is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit activist group mainly known for anti-vaccine disinformation and has been identified as one of the main sources of misinformation on vaccines. Founded under the name World Mercury Project in 2011, it is chaired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The group has been campaigning against various public health programs, such as vaccination and fluoridation of drinking water. The group has been contributing to vaccine hesitancy in the United States, encouraging citizens and legislators to support anti-vaccine regulations and legislation. Arguments against vaccination are contradicted by overwhelming scientific consensus about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
The COVID-19 pandemic was covered in Wikipedia extensively, in real-time, and across many languages. This coverage extends to many detailed articles about various aspects of the topic itself, as well as many existing articles being amended to take account of the pandemic's effect on them. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects' coverage of the pandemic – and how the volunteer editing community achieved that coverage – received widespread media attention for its comprehensiveness, reliability, and speed. Wikipedia experienced an increase in readership during the pandemic.
Plandemic are a trilogy of conspiracy theory video and films produced by Mikki Willis promoting misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. They feature Judy Mikovits, a discredited American researcher described as an anti-vaccine activist. The first video, Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19, was released on May 4, 2020, under Willis' production company Elevate Films. The second film, Plandemic Indoctornation, which includes more interviewees, was released on August 18 by Brian Rose's conspiracy distributor London Real. Later on June 3, 2023, Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening was released on The Highwire, a conspiracy website run by anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree.
America's Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) is an American right-wing political organization. Affiliated with Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin and publicly led by Simone Gold, the group is opposed to measures intended to control the COVID-19 pandemic, such as business closures, stay-at-home orders, and vaccination. The group promotes falsehoods about the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines.
Helen Aspasia Petousis-Harris is a New Zealand vaccinologist and associate professor in the Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care at the University of Auckland. She has been involved in research related to vaccination in New Zealand since 1998, with her main areas of focus being vaccine safety and effectiveness. Petousis-Harris has had a variety of lead roles in New Zealand and international organisations that focus on vaccination and is a regular media spokesperson in this field, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A high proportion of internet sources on the topic are "inaccurate on the whole" which can lead people searching for information to form "significant misconceptions about vaccines".
Simone Melissa Gold is an American doctor and anti-vaccine activist. She is the founder of America's Frontline Doctors, a right-wing political organization known for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. Before her arrest and guilty plea for participating in the 2021 United States Capitol attack, she had gained attention when a video of an America's Frontline Doctors press conference in front of the US Supreme Court Building went viral in July 2020. During the press conference, she touted the supposed benefits of hydroxychloroquine, despite evidence that it is ineffective as a COVID-19 treatment and can carry significant risks.
Christiane Northrup is a former obstetrics and gynaecology physician and author who has embraced pseudoscientific alternative medicine and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. She has a history of opposing vaccination and has embraced QAnon ideology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Northrup reaches a significant audience through popular books and multiple social media platforms and spreads misinformation, notably about COVID-19.
Claire Ann Deeks is a New Zealand anti-vaccine activist who has challenged the government's response to COVID-19. She was an unsuccessful candidate for the Advance NZ party in the 2020 general election, and set up the group Voices for Freedom (VFF), which distributed pamphlets that have been criticised by experts as containing COVID-19 misinformation about vaccines, lockdown and the wearing of masks. As a food blogger, Deeks promoted the paleo diet and "healthy" lunchboxes for children, and developed a petition to stop the rating system for foods used by the NZ and Australian governments. She is a former intellectual property lawyer.
Robert Wallace Malone is an American physician and biochemist. His early work focused on mRNA technology, pharmaceuticals, and drug repurposing research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Malone promoted misinformation about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
Alaa Najjar is a physician, Wikipedian and internet activist, who was named the Wikimedian of the Year at Wikimania in August 2021 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales for his pioneering role in the development of the Arab and medical communities as well as for his role in the development of COVID-19 topics.
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States is the sociocultural phenomenon of individuals refusing or displaying hesitance towards receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States can be considered as part of the broader history of vaccine hesitancy.
The World Doctors Alliance is a pseudo-medical organization of anti-vaccine activists, COVID-19 denialists and conspiracy theorists which was established in May 2020 by Mohammad Iqbal Adil.
Anti-vaccination activists and other people in many countries have spread a variety of unfounded conspiracy theories and other misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines based on misunderstood or misrepresented science, religion, and law. These have included exaggerated claims about side effects, misrepresentations about how the immune system works and when and how COVID-19 vaccines are made, a story about COVID-19 being spread by 5G, and other false or distorted information. This misinformation has proliferated and may have made many people averse to vaccination. This has led to governments and private organizations around the world introducing measures to incentivize/coerce vaccination, such as lotteries, mandates and free entry to events, which has in turn led to further misinformation about the legality and effect of these measures themselves.
This timeline includes entries on the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This includes investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Social media apps and platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and YouTube, have contributed to the spread of misinformation. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 began on "day one". CAHN reported on March 16, 2020, that far-right groups in Canada were taking advantage of the climate of anxiety and fear surrounding COVID, to recycle variations of conspiracies from the 1990s, that people had shared over shortwave radio. COVID-19 disinformation is intentional and seeks to create uncertainty and confusion. But most of the misinformation is shared online unintentionally by enthusiastic participants who are politically active.
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