The Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a new level of conspiracy theories and medical misinformation that some dubbed an ‘infodemic.’ Science influencer and infectious disease researcher Laurel Bristow made a name online de-bunking false claims. Now, five years after COVID was declared a pandemic, she joins Dr. Sanjay Gupta to talk about her new approach to spotting shoddy science.
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00:00So your Instagram handle is at... I mean, I'm sure everyone's asked you this.
00:04Say it, Sanjay Gupta, say it.
00:08King Gutter Baby. King Gutter Baby.
00:11Yes, it is.
00:13I want to take you back three years ago, March 2021. I sat down one day with someone who was
00:19making a name for herself on Instagram. Her name is Laurel Bristow, an infectious disease
00:24researcher at Emory University. The reason I wanted to talk to her at the time was because
00:29when the pandemic started, she decided to step up, to use her background to answer
00:35questions about COVID online. And the way that she did it was not only super informative,
00:41but also pretty funny. A breath of fresh air in a pretty dark time.
00:46Hello, my little cheesy gorditas, and welcome to Monday.
00:49Her account specifically focused on combating the rampant myths and
00:52conspiracy theories that were circulating online at the time.
00:56If you're going to send me a message that says,
00:58why is no one talking about X or why is no one doing Y,
01:01please make sure that's actually true before you do it. Did you even Google anything?
01:07I was trying to do my part as well to help people understand what was happening with
01:10the COVID pandemic. Longtime listeners may remember that at that time, this podcast was
01:16a daily podcast, and it was named Coronavirus Fact Versus Fiction. I really admired the way
01:23that Laurel was using a medium that was unfortunately the host of a lot of misinformation,
01:29the reservoir of a lot of bad information, social media, but she was using it to spread the truth.
01:36Well, this March now marks five years since the World Health Organization declared COVID
01:41to be a pandemic, and it's no doubt changed all of our lives in some way.
01:46But in light of the anniversary, I decided to reach out to Laurel once again,
01:51to hear how she went about dispelling misinformation during COVID, how she
01:56approached all of that, and how she is still using that skill today to take on new conspiracy theories,
02:02new medical myths, everything from vaccine efficacy to measles. She's really good at this,
02:10and that's saying something, and it's a skill that she has that is still, unfortunately,
02:14really relevant, and I think something that we could all stand to sharpen.
02:19I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, and this is Chasing Life.
02:29You know, so much has changed since I last spoke to Laurel, again, three years ago,
02:33including her Instagram handle. That was what initially made her pretty internet famous.
02:40I'm sorry, I'm no longer King Gutter Baby. I know that you were...
02:43I love King Gutter Baby.
02:44You were so attached to my original goofy Instagram name, but now it's just Laurel2.
02:48It is one of my favorite soundbites of all time, is when I got you to say King Gutter Baby.
02:54King Gutter Baby. I just said it again.
02:57Today, Laurel hosts her own podcast. It's called Health Wanted. She does it for WABE,
03:03which is Atlanta's NPR affiliate. Now, she admits, like many of us,
03:08her mental health has improved since the height of the pandemic.
03:12It was, yeah, that was extremely dark, I think. I was working on COVID clinical trials in the
03:18hospital, so I was seeing COVID patients all day long. For many months, it was working six
03:23days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, doing all of this stuff and then coming home and getting on
03:28Instagram and, you know, answering people's questions or explaining scientific research
03:32and stuff. And when I look back on it, the amount of work and the pace that I was doing,
03:37I'm not even sure how I did it. I think the only reason that that happened is because I did not
03:42want to have a moment to stop and really think about what was going on, which was not like the
03:46healthiest way to cope with it, but it is what I was doing. I think having a purpose really helped
03:52my mental health. So I would be at the hospital all day, and then I would come home and sit in
03:56my kitchen and set up my little tripod and record videos. It felt very important to me at the time
04:01because I had such a close understanding or, you know, as much of an understanding as you could
04:05about the virus and what was happening and infectious disease in general, that that gave me
04:10a lot of comfort and I wanted other people to understand it so that they could make decisions
04:14and feel like empowered in the decisions that they were making rather than scared of what was
04:19happening. So was that the real motivator initially was to sort of, you know, allay people's anxieties
04:24and fears? Yeah, I mean, I wanted very strongly that, you know, people can feel empowered by
04:29information and they want to understand it and they can understand it. And when you have that,
04:35you know, it's still, it's not necessarily less scary, but it's less anxiety inducing and you can
04:41feel a little bit more in control of what is happening. And I think that is really helpful
04:45for people to stay grounded. The videos are great and people should, you have a lot of followers,
04:50but people who have not followed you should watch these videos. How did you even begin to approach
04:55it? What did you think? Yeah, I mean, I think, so I mentioned in there were like four days where
05:00we had stopped our studies in the hospital before we started doing these clinical trials.
05:05And so in that four days, I didn't have a lot to do. And I made my first video where I just said,
05:09you know, does anybody want to understand what it means to flatten the curve or like want to know
05:14what we know about COVID so far to explain to people? And I had some friends say yes. So I made
05:20that first video. People started asking questions and I started getting new followers and they said,
05:25you know, oh, what about this person who's talking about this? Or someone said that they saw this in
05:29this paper. And so I really just like was looking at my messages and starting to just make videos
05:34based on the stuff that people were asking me. And as new papers were being released, I mean,
05:39this was a huge time for preprint servers and trying to help people understand, you know,
05:43what makes a good paper and what makes a bad paper and how the scientific process works and
05:48how vaccine clinical trials work and that sort of thing. So yeah, I really it was kind of a
05:53crowdsourcing situation of what do you what do you want to learn about today?
05:58Were you surprised at the reaction that you got?
06:01I think so. I mean, I would think I was pleasantly surprised that people really did want to
06:05understand how things worked. I think it taught me a lot about the ways in which I shape how I
06:13give information to people so that they can understand it. But they did people wanted to
06:17understand, you know, how does an mRNA vaccine work? Like what is actually happening in your
06:22cells? How is it different from other vaccines? And so I think it was really cool to find out
06:27that people, you know, actually have a thirst for this knowledge, because we do have not the
06:31best scientific literacy in this country. And so to find out that people really wanted to fill those
06:36gaps in and were willing and interested in asking questions was pretty cool.
06:41At some point, and I don't know when it was, it seemed like the thrust went from
06:46for the whole country went from providing information to battling misinformation.
06:50Yeah.
06:51That there seemed to be these parallel sort of sources of information out there, some like yours
06:56based on, you know, evidence, the data, your scientific background, and a lot of other things
07:03that were really fueled by conspiracy theories, which typically you think of as being, you know,
07:07these small pockets, but really gained a lot of steam. When did you first start to sense that?
07:13I think it happened pretty early on. For me, I think, you know, there were there are some
07:19alternative medicine people who really saw this as an opportunity to push
07:24the things that they were selling, which is pretty expected. But then the conspiracy stuff
07:29happened really quickly. And I think particularly when it comes to something like COVID, that is
07:33like a world disrupting situation, people really want to be able to blame something, right? Like
07:40they do not, it is not appealing to have the answer be, this is a thing that just sometimes
07:46happens the way the 1918 flu pandemic happened. And so then you get, you know, lab leak theories,
07:52you get that this is engineered to, you know, take out a portion of the population, you get
07:57all of this stuff, because it helps people understand something that's a little too scary
08:02to think about that it could just happen, you know, for no reason, essentially. And so those
08:08I feel like that conspiracy theory really started extremely quickly.
08:11So how did you approach it, then?
08:13I mean, it's tricky, because conspiracy theories, and you know, having someone to blame,
08:19and all this stuff that elicits a really emotional reaction in people is really appealing. And people,
08:25when people have a visceral reaction, they want to share something really quickly without like
08:29looking into it all the time. And it's hard, because the scientific explanation or the
08:33reasonable explanation, they're always a little bit more boring, you know, they're not as catchy
08:38and stuff. And so it really just takes a lot of patience to approach it from saying like,
08:42alright, let's think through this. Logically, you try to poke holes in the argument,
08:47and just try to remind people, you know, that if something causes a visceral reaction in you,
08:52you should take a little extra time in looking into it. Because I think that's really hard for
08:56people. And that's how misinformation gets amplified so much is that someone has a strong
09:00emotional response to it and shares it without thinking about it, you know, even if they're
09:04well intentioned. And it's happened to me too, sometimes, you know, I always have to keep myself
09:08in check as well, with certain things that confirm our biases, or, you know, make us feel
09:12afraid or make us feel sad. So I think it's just a matter of reminding people to slow down and think
09:18through things for a second. You said that there were probably people who were benefiting from the
09:24idea of having a lot of misinformation out there. Maybe they were selling products or whatever it
09:31might be. Do you think that like, when you look back now over the last few years, is that really,
09:37what sort of fuels this? Because I'll tell you, Laurel,
09:41I'm a pretty simple guy. And I think to myself, I understand why people want to get people
09:47to do something to engage in healthy behaviors, mitigate risk, take a vaccine, whatever it might
09:53be. When people are convinced not to do something, not to engage in healthy behaviors, not to take a
10:01vaccine, whatever, that's a little confusing to me, because I think it's just sheer profit,
10:07right? People are going to try and sell you something here, they're telling you not to do
10:11something. But I think what you're saying is that there was still probably people who were benefiting
10:17by selling products. I mean, yeah, so there are definitely you see, you know, the Vax detox
10:22products, or, you know, the COVID vaccine alternatives, those were like huge things,
10:26you know, immune supplementation, instead of getting vaccinated, those, that's all like
10:30product lines that were beneficial. But to your point, you know, into in this era of existence,
10:39attention is a currency, right? So you can make money in other ways, or even just the value of
10:45having a huge following from telling people, don't take the vaccine, don't wear a mask,
10:50don't do this, you can build these communities, and then the attention itself is appealing,
10:55it can be parlayed into other things, you know, they don't have to necessarily be selling you a
10:59product related specifically to this. But, you know, they get speaking engagements, they get,
11:04you know, brand deals for other stuff, their platform becomes valuable to advertisers for
11:09other things, and they'll sell their followers those things. So I think that is a huge pathway
11:14that is beneficial to people, even if they're not directly selling you anything. I think also,
11:20people, it's a way to feel community, right? And I think especially in something like the
11:26context of COVID, where you have the kind of government or these other entities telling you
11:31what to do. I always say, you know, it's hard to feel like the smartest person in the room when
11:36you're agreeing with everybody else in it. So there's a lot of power to people to say, like,
11:41well, actually, they don't want you to know this. And then people can feel community in that in,
11:46you know, knowing something that these other people don't know. And I think that's super
11:49appealing to people. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break here. But when we come back,
11:54more from Laurel about taking on the new types of misinformation these days.
12:04You have people now within the administration, including the Secretary of Health and Human
12:09Services, Bobby Kennedy, who have said things that have been shown to be demonstrably wrong
12:16about vaccines. And I was just in West Texas. And part of the reason we're seeing these measles
12:21outbreaks is because of pockets of the population that are under vaccinated.
12:26And one of the reasons people don't vaccinate is because they're concerned about things like
12:30autism. This came about really, I think, started with fervor in the late 90s, from a paper that
12:37was subsequently withdrawn, debunked. But it led to all these studies, people said, Okay, look,
12:44that paper was debunked. But hey, I'm worried enough about this now, that let's study this.
12:50And so there was these large studies, hundreds of 1000s of children, their medical records were
12:55analyzed, they looked at vaccinated people, they looked at unvaccinated, they looked at the
13:00history, like, do you have siblings with vaccination, all that to say that there was no,
13:05there's no correlation between vaccines and autism. And yet, Laurel, we have a Secretary of
13:12Health in the United States, arguably, you know, the powerhouse when it comes to scientific
13:17discovery in the world, who is saying, I'm still not sure. I think that vaccines cause autism has
13:23said that actually recently. What are we to do with this? I mean, I don't know if there's a
13:29clear answer. Yeah. But what do you how do you think about that? I Yeah, I think about it a lot.
13:34It's it is frustrating and stressful. I think it's really hard that the person who's in the
13:41highest position of power, when it comes to the health of our country, is casting doubt on what
13:48are life saving incredible interventions for truly no reason. I mean, we not only have done so much
13:56research that shows that there is no connection between vaccines and autism. But you know, the
14:00field of autism has research to support things that you know, do increase your chances of autism.
14:07It's you know, there's genetics, there's environmental factors, there's all this sort of
14:10stuff. And so it's not only frustrating for the idea that people will build this hesitancy to use
14:17these vaccines that are so critical to maintaining the health of our country. But also that they,
14:22you know, will ignore the potential things that do impact autism rates, or, you know, the things
14:28that we need to do to help. And so I think I think it's, I don't have an answer, unfortunately.
14:32But I do think, you know, you and I as science communicators will be pretty busy for the next
14:38four years, trying to clarify statements and make sure people understand what the science actually
14:43shows.
14:43Do you get despondent? I mean, are you are you invigorated to do even more given what's
14:49happening in the country overall? Or do you like if you just say, Look, it's been fun.
14:54Yeah.
14:55But this is a brick wall that I can no longer pound my head against.
15:00Yeah, I mean, of course, there's part of me that's like, man, after five years, I thought I was
15:04going to be like off the hook. You know, my Instagram was just gonna be vacation photos,
15:08it would be great. But I do feel very passionately about this. I feel very passionately about people
15:14getting accurate information and feeling empowered in the decisions that they make for themselves and
15:18their families. So I'm going to keep doing what I do. And I'm going to build my network of people
15:23that I trust so that I can tell people, you know, it's a science communication is a team effort.
15:28And it really is important that you find a solid core of people who are giving good information,
15:35good and accurate information so that you have someone to turn to. Because I feel very,
15:42I feel very optimistic about the passion that a lot of people on social media have a lot of
15:47scientists on social media have for giving people good information and combating this.
15:52So I think I take a lot of comfort in the fact that this is going to be a team effort.
15:56And the only reason that we're doing it is because we feel very passionately about helping
16:00everyone. You know, whether you want to believe in what I'm saying or not,
16:04it will benefit you and I will be here for you if when and if you're ready to listen to it.
16:08I'll be on team Laurel. I get behind that.
16:12Do you think this is a pendulum swing? Or do you think we are heading towards this trajectory of
16:17increased misinformation? You look at X, for example, I don't really do social media much.
16:26I don't surf it much. I am definitely I mean, I'm a lot older than you. And I think it just
16:31wasn't something that was part of my time really at all, even as a approaching middle aged person,
16:39I guess middle aged now. But do you still you do Instagram? What about X? Do you do you find
16:46places where it's just it's become too much of a cesspool? Yeah, I'm off of X. I just I think that
16:52the effort versus the benefits are not really there. I think the people who are going to be
16:56actually genuinely receptive to learning are seeking their information through things that
17:01are a little bit more neutral at the moment, like Instagram or TikTok, you know, the scientific
17:06community as a whole kind of all moved to blue sky. So I have the things I was using X for I now
17:13get on blue sky, which is great. So yeah, I think there are certain places that I just I can't see
17:19the benefit of. But there was a lot of talk about, you know, leaving Instagram because Mark
17:24Zuckerberg has decided that meta is not doing fact checking anymore and this sort of stuff.
17:28And I just think, you know, if if the people who are committed to evidence based research,
17:32leave all these platforms, then it becomes an echo chamber. So there are certain places.
17:37And who knows, Instagram might become untenable the way X did. But for now, I think it's really
17:42important to stay on those platforms so that, you know, the people who are asking questions
17:46in good faith have good resources that they could potentially find.
17:50Yeah, I mean, so if you're talking to the other science communicators out there,
17:54are there some tripwires you tell them to avoid?
17:57I emphasize stressing the limitations of what we know, you know, stressing that things change,
18:03those are important. If you're somebody who is, you know, not in the scientific community,
18:07and you're looking at social media, things that I would tell you to look out for, because people
18:12ask me how to spot bad science. You know, first of all, if somebody is eliciting an emotional,
18:18a super emotional response in you, that's not great science communication. Usually,
18:23oftentimes, that is also tied to, you know, if they have, they're selling a product to you,
18:28if their post is telling you about if they have invented a problem that they are going to sell
18:32you the cure for, that's a huge red flag. I think, you know, the biggest one that I think about
18:36right now is parasite cleanses. Like if you live in the United States, the chances you have a
18:41parasitic infection that needs to be cleansed is so infinitesimally low. But that is a huge
18:46industry right now. So things like that. I think if something sounds too good or too bad to be true,
18:52it probably is. Unfortunately, science and the scientific process is kind of boring. It's very
18:58rare that we have like a huge breakthrough that's really exciting. So most of the stuff you're going
19:04to hear from legitimate scientists is not going to be like, elicit a super strong emotion from you.
19:10So I think those are all really important things to look out for.
19:13And humility, like you talked about before, I do think this idea of not matching the emotion of a
19:20huge emotional response is important. And, you know, I mean, I think this idea of living,
19:25being comfortable with nuance, and being comfortable with a little bit of uncertainty,
19:31embracing uncertainty. Yeah, it's challenging.
19:34Also, it's important, a skill that I think everyone needs to learn is to check the visceral
19:38reaction of like, well, it hasn't happened to me. So does that actually happen? You know,
19:42there's a big whole world of experiences out there. And so I think that's really an important
19:46thing, nuance and context to keep in mind. Yeah, I saw I heard about that a lot with the
19:51measles. There's so many infectious disease doctors who they've never taken care of measles.
19:56They've never seen and these are, you know, people who are experienced,
19:59long tenured infectious disease doctors. And questions we get is, hey, everyone got measles,
20:04it's not that big a deal. Then you remind them that several hundred people died,
20:08hundreds of 1000s got sick, you know, every year. Yeah, it's it's like the the you're a
20:13victim of your own success in some ways. I know. And I also like I made a video about,
20:18you know, because the claim now is that getting measles is actually good for you. And I read
20:21through all the papers that they cite and kind of tear them down. But somebody commented,
20:25measles has killed like one person in the last 12 years in the United States. And you're like,
20:29let's think through why that might be guys like, come on. Yeah, exactly.
20:36This is a hypothetical, but if you just looked at 100% of the population, and you say,
20:41I'm making it up, but but a certain percentage of them are just chaos creators. They are just
20:47shit starters. Chaos is the currency for them. Another percentage are people who are naysayers,
20:54but they are good faith naysayers, as you as you've alluded to, I'm really concerned
20:58about this for my kids, for my parents, for myself, whatever it may be. And then the rest
21:02of the people are like, hey, look, we've looked at all the scientific data, we've we've done the
21:07homework, we've looked at the evidence. And we've arrived on the side of you should do these public
21:11health practices. Any idea how big each of these these buckets of like, how many people out there
21:16percentage wise, do you think are just chaos creators? I actually think it's a pretty small
21:20percentage. And I say that, you know, when you look at the kind of maybe the anti vaccine
21:26community as a whole, you just find repeaters, you find it's all the same people who are,
21:33you know, being quoted, quoting each other doing these, this quote, unquote, research,
21:37these questionable papers, promoting it and stuff, because I do think it's a small community,
21:42I think it's just really loud. And that can trick people into thinking it's this huge community,
21:46I think the probably the biggest percentage is going to be, and they, they're probably actually
21:52pretty close to each other. But the people who, you know, are on the side of science,
21:56science and scientific research, and the people who have legitimate questions, or, you know,
22:01really want to understand, but maybe the only thing that they've been exposed to is this really
22:06loud contingency of people who are trying to start problems. I do, I think in the like, you know,
22:11public polling that we see, you know, Emma Rollins just did a Gallup poll about people's
22:16attitudes towards health, you know, topics, and you do really surprisingly find that a lot more
22:22people are on the side of wanting to understand things or caring about these public health topics
22:28than people who, you know, are caring about kind of the contradictory or contrarian stuff that is
22:35out there. I find like, it's weird, sometimes, Laurel, I, the social media world, again, which
22:42I don't do a lot of, but that compared to the real world, IRL, as the kids call it in real life.
22:48So different. Yeah. And I, and I, and I'm not sure, maybe it's just me, again, as a guy in his
22:53mid 50s. Maybe people just don't come up to me in real life and say things that I read about,
23:00even questions that I would read about on social media. And I, and I don't know what to make of
23:05that. I feel like maybe the social media world is, is highly manufactured. Maybe it's the anonymity
23:10that people have there that they, they say things that they otherwise wouldn't say in the real
23:14world. But did you have situations where people you knew, like actual friends of yours or colleagues
23:20of yours, took great issue with things that you were saying on social media or friendships or
23:27any things that you had to abandon as a result of that? I mean, I think there are some people
23:31that I had like social media relationships who I saw, you know, reposting stuff that was so
23:37inflammatory that I just couldn't really understand, especially like, you know me,
23:43and you know what I do for work, and yet you, you're still posting this stuff. But I think
23:48overall... Directed at you or just in general, you're saying? Just in general, you know, just
23:51like the scientific misinformation that people would post. But I think overall, like the people
23:57that I know in real life, even if we have different, like I have some friends who are into
24:01more woo-woo healing and stuff. And I feel like we can have conversations about where the place
24:08is for that. And you know, why I do what I do or support, you know, the interventions that I
24:14support. And so I do think a lot of people have been actually very receptive to that. And I think
24:19it's important to me because there are some people I can see who, you know, maybe don't get it, but
24:22could be on the cusp of understanding it. Or their, you know, values could change or align
24:28over time. And so I want to keep them close, because I want to give them the option if they
24:31want to ask me questions or get clarification, or if I can, you know, nicely engage with them when
24:36I see them posting stuff that is maybe, you know, not the most accurate. I think that's really
24:40important to maintain that option for people too. When you're having discussions about tough topics
24:47with family, with friends, how do you approach it nowadays, whether it be COVID or USAID funding,
24:55or politics in general, or climate change? Do you approach it differently as a result of
24:59everything you've learned? Yeah, I mean, I think I just approach it from a place of curiosity.
25:03I want to understand what people have seen or heard or read that make them think the things
25:09that they are thinking. So I can try to walk through that logic. Where did you hear that?
25:14Yeah, you know, tell me what you mean by that. Where did you hear that? You know, why I'm interested?
25:20Why do you think that that's the case? So that I can have an understanding of how I can approach it
25:25to try to give them, you know, the alternative perspective or the alternative, you know,
25:30statistics or facts that they might not be aware of. Or to ask, you know, well, why do you think
25:35that that is a credible source, but this is not? To try to help people, you know, think through
25:40things themselves, because the person who is most likely to convince them or change their mind is
25:46themselves, right? So you just want to give them the tools to help them understand what you're
25:50trying to say, so that they can factor that into their decision making and the way they think about
25:54things. You've helped a lot of people, Laurel. Do you reflect on that at all? I mean, you don't
26:00strike me as somebody who's very navel-gazing and sort of self-congratulatory, but you probably
26:05helped a lot of people. It is very nice. Every once in a while, someone will recognize me in
26:09public because it is my face, you know, on my Instagram and come up and thank me. And, you know,
26:14people send nice messages, especially now. I think everyone is a little bit scared that I might just
26:18be like, forget it, I'm not doing this again. So I have been getting a lot of nice messages about
26:23how helpful people found my information during COVID. And I do, I love that and appreciate it.
26:26It's hard when you're recording by yourself in your kitchen to know if you're connecting with
26:31people. So that has been nice. And you're happy? I am. I do. I think, I mean, I think I have the
26:36same anxieties and stress that everybody else does, but overall, you know, very happy and very
26:40happy to help. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. And if you want
26:45to hear more from Laurel, you can listen to her podcast. It's called Health Wanted, and you can
26:50listen to it wherever podcasts are found. Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio.
26:56Our podcast is produced by Erin Mathewson, Jennifer Lai, Grace Walker, Lori Gallaretta,
27:03Jesse Remedios, Sophia Sanchez, and Keira Daring. Andrea Cain is our medical writer.
27:09Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Amanda Seeley is our showrunner. Dan DeZula is our technical
27:14director. And the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickti. With support from Jamis Andrest,
27:21John D'Onora, Haley Thomas, Alex Manassari, Robert Mathers, Lainey Steinhardt,
27:29Nicole Pesseru, and Lisa Namaru. Special thanks to Ben Tinker
27:34and Nadia Kanang of CNN Health and Katie Hinman.