By Carmen Sesin - NBC News
MIAMI - On a recent program on Actualidad, a Miami AM radio station, the presenter touted a false cure for COVID-19: the use of ivermectin, a drug used to deworm animals.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned against its use and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have noted that poison centers are reporting an increase in serious illnesses caused by people taking this drug.
[Demand for a drug for cattle taken against COVID-19 is skyrocketing, although there is no evidence of its efficacy]
The presenter claimed on August 23 that he could cite clinical trials from Latin America "where doctors are using ivermectin with extraordinary results" and "people recover in three or four days."
The announcer falsely suggested that ivermectin was not being touted by government health officials to cure coronavirus because "it costs 20 cents a pill and with three or four, or five pills, you are good to go."
"Pharmaceutical companies don't make a lot of money," he added.
Florida is dealing with a record number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as an increase in hospitalizations as a result of the more contagious delta variant.
Yet on Spanish-language radio, hosts are pushing right-wing conspiracy theories similar to those heard on English-language shows.
Recently, three conservative English-language radio hosts who opposed vaccines died of coronavirus.
Amid a surge in infections across the country, medical misinformation in Spanish persists on AM radio, social media, and closed messaging apps, with people claiming that masks don't work and that the vaccine is dangerous and part of the "global reset."
Many of the
influencers
and groups that are spreading these conspiracy theories in Spanish are the same ones that spread the disinformation ahead of the 2020 presidential elections, continuing the false narratives about electoral fraud and the attack on the Capitol on January 6.
[Comedian Joe Rogan has COVID-19 and claims to have been treated with a discredited horse drug]
Now, they have turned to medical misinformation. A common theme in many messages is the comparison of the responses of international governments to the pandemic with Nazi Germany, with groups claiming that the blockades, as well as the mandates of masks and vaccines, are the beginning of global tyranny. Many of the statements made in Spanish are not very different from those made in English and other languages.
Joan Donovan, director of research at the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, noted that researchers are not sure how much of the misinformation about the pandemic is actually coordinated, rather than just harnessed. " known tropes that tend to mobilize people ", such as the idea that individual freedom is being eliminated, or that independent options are going to be criminalized.
"That's when we start to get into really dangerous territory," Donovan said.
"When people mobilize and make decisions based on medical misinformation, for example, leaving their homes to go to school board meetings and talk about masks being oppressive, or to talk about microchipped vaccines," he added .
There is evidence that people are mobilizing based on the false information they are seeing and reading
.
On a popular Spanish Facebook page, an influencer calls Florida school board members who voted for children to wear face masks in schools "communists" and equates vaccine mandates to a "tyranny against liberty. ".
The
influencer
attended a school board meeting on mask mandates in Lee County, Florida, and was escorted out while yelling "communists" to board members.
He yelled at parents to "stop complying" and "get your kids out of school."
[Be careful: there is no proof that ivermectin cures COVID-19]
On his Facebook page, he asks to pray for the "wonderful" Governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis.
Although he has urged state residents to get vaccinated, he is largely considered an ally of many of these groups, due to his fight against mask mandates for students and businesses that require proof of vaccination.
At least 26 Florida educators and five children died after contracting COVID-19 in August.
A 59-year-old man leaves a Utah hospital after 223 days hospitalized for COVID-19
Sept.
3, 202100: 23
Due to the delta variant, the CDC recommends the use of indoor masks for all students 2 years and older, as well as for teachers, staff, and visitors, regardless of immunization status in K-12 schools.
[Tom Brady reveals he had COVID-19 after celebrating his Super Bowl win]
The most dangerous information in Spanish about masks and vaccines continues to be in closed messaging apps, such as What'sApp and Telegram.
In a Telegram channel, a user urged people not to renounce the rights of parents before the Government, adding "first is the 'mandate of the mask', second is the 'mandate of health', third, your ' rights as parents ".
Maria Oramas receives the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pzifer-BioNTech in Miami, Florida, on Monday, August 9, 2021.AP Photo / Marta Lavandier
On another Telegram channel, a user posted a video of the Venezuelan singer José Luís Rodríguez receiving the third dose of Moderna with a caption saying that "it has been sold to promote poison."
Another user wrote: "He's very stupid. They sure are paying him to do that show."
Evelyn Pérez-Verdia, a Florida-based Democratic strategist who was the first to point out that disinformation in Spanish against Democrats wreaked havoc on social media and WhatsApp groups during the 2020 campaign, thought there would be a decline in the misinformation after the elections, "but it has been the opposite, since the same people seem to be targeting vaccines."
COVID-19: doctor explains the risks of using ivermectin as a treatment against the virus
Feb. 1, 202101: 20
"All the false information that is repeated on social networks and on the radio is influencing our communities," Pérez-Verdia recalled.
Since the spread of conspiracy theories in Spanish came to light, some progressive groups have taken an interest and created ways to combat misinformation.
Voto Latino is one of the organizations that partnered with Media Matters to launch a Latino Lab Against Disinformation, in collaboration with the group Media Matters, which monitors disinformation.
[North Korea rejects COVID-19 vaccines and remains airtight on the pandemic]
In the spring, the organization published a study that revealed that "almost 4 in 10 Latino respondents say they have seen material or information that makes them think that COVID-19 vaccines are not safe or effective."
After studying the results, Voto Latino launched an ad in California, Texas and Florida with ordinary people talking about their experience after being vaccinated.
They identified the people who doubted the vaccine.
Those who saw the ad were 54 times more likely to search for the term "get vaccinated against COVID-19."
"This shows that the intervention really works,"
said María Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino.
Kumar said they used similar templates and identification markers for people who were unsure about registering to vote.
"This shows that the Latino community is not getting enough information," Kumar said. "But when information is offered directly to them, it gives them the opportunity to make the right decisions for their families and for themselves."
