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01-06-2021 | Public Health | Scientific Contribution

Do we need the criminalization of medical fake news?

Author: Kamil Mamak

Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy | Issue 2/2021

Abstract

Uncontrolled access to information on the Internet has many advantages, but it also leads to the phenomenon of fake news. Fake news is dangerous in many spheres, including that of health. For example, we are facing an increase in the amount of vaccine hesitancy. This has been w considered by the World Health Organization in 2019 as one of the greatest threats to public health. This specific phenomenon is linked with the spread of information on the Internet around that issue. In this paper, I discuss a proposition of new crime, which has the aim of fighting medical fake news by stopping its spread. This proposition should be considered only if other non-criminal measures are inefficient. The proposal is “Whoever publicly disseminates information evidently discrepant with medical knowledge is subject to a penalty.”

The idea of criminalization of medical fake news I presented in a popular science blog in Polish, see: Mamak (2020a, b).

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Title: Do we need the criminalization of medical fake news?
Author: Kamil Mamak
Publication date: 01-06-2021
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Keyword: Public Health
Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy / Issue 2/2021
Print ISSN: 1386-7423
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8633
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-020-09996-7

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Do we need the criminalization of medical fake news?

Abstract

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Abstract

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