Fake News or Weak Science? Visibility and Characterization of Antivaccine Webpages Returned by Google in Different Languages and Countries

Abstract

The 1998 Lancet paper by Wakefield et al., despite subsequent retraction and evidence indicating no causal link between vaccinations and autism, triggered significant parental concern. The aim of this study was to analyze the online information available on this topic. Using localized versions of Google, we searched “autism vaccine” in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Arabic and analyzed 200 websites for each search engine result page (SERP). A common feature was the newsworthiness of the topic, with news outlets representing 25–50% of the SERP, followed by unaffiliated websites (blogs, social media) that represented 27–41% and included most of the vaccine-negative websites. Between 12 and 24% of websites had a negative stance on vaccines, while most websites were pro-vaccine (43–70%). However, their ranking by Google varied. While in , the first vaccine-negative website was the 43rd in the SERP, there was one vaccine-negative webpage in the top 10 websites in both the British and Australian localized versions and in French and two in Italian, Portuguese, and Mandarin, suggesting that the information quality algorithm used by Google may work better in English. Many webpages mentioned celebrities in the context of the link between vaccines and autism, with Donald Trump most frequently. Few websites (1–5%) promoted complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) but 50–100% of these were also vaccine-negative suggesting that CAM users are more exposed to vaccine-negative information. This analysis highlights the need for monitoring the web for information impacting on vaccine uptake.

Online Information on Probiotics: Does It Match Scientific Evidence?

“…This was also used when comparing the frequency of HONcode-certified webpages in the top 10 results vs. the remaining 140 websites. The statistical analysis was pre-defined and followed exactly the same design used in our previous studies (7)(8)(9).…”

“…It is therefore important to assess the trustworthiness of the probiotics information that can be found online. For this purpose, we took advantage of an established methodology previously used to analyze health information quality on antioxidants and vaccines (7)(8)(9).…”

O panorama da vigilância de eventos adversos pós-vacinação ao fim da década de 2010: importância, ferramentas e desafios

“…Records of AEFI in individuals vaccinated in the Brazilian public system are made available by the Ministry of Health, through the General Coordination of the PNI (CGPNI, in Portuguese), in the Information System on Surveillance of Adverse Events Following Immunization (SI-EAPV, in Portuguese) 8,9 . The PNI launched the surveillance of AEFI in 1992, and compulsory notification was established on July 15, 2005 10 .…”

Autism and Vaccinations: Does Google side with Science?

“…Another study evaluating JAMA points reported that the google.com and google.co.uk websites had higher points compared with the localized interfaces in English-Australia, French, and Italian. [21] According to our results, the reliability of anti-vaccination articles on websites and news sites related to this topic in Turkey seems to belower.…”