Anti-vaccine preachers are dangerous and ubiquitous. PBS needs to make sure it doesn’t give broadcast space to ministers of misinformation.
I found myself laughing recently at the kerfuffle produced by Texas Senator Ted Cruz as he took on Sesame Street’s iconic Big Bird over the fictional character’s social media endorsement of COVID-19 vaccinations.
Yes, Big Bird has a Twitter handle and more followers than many flesh-and-blood celebrities.
The feathery PBS character, who more lately hangs out on commercial cable, recently used the platform to aim praise for the COVID-19 vaccine at children, as “an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.”
Cruz, a Texas Republican rhetorically big on small government, thought this was a moment to be seized. He called out Big Bird for issuing “government propaganda for your 5-year-old.”
Cruz’s bold political action would have been hilarious If it wasn’t about the deadly serious issue of vaccinations and our bizarre national hesitancy to accept sound science, get inoculated and finally end this coronavirus pandemic.
The Cruz v. Big Bird episode got me thinking more about the public trust bestowed on the Public Broadcasting Service, the beloved avian’s longtime home before he and the Sesame Street gang moved to HBO, which is not — ahem, Sen. Cruz — government-subsidized.
I thought about why it’s become necessary to recruit influencers like Big Bird for a campaign to combat vaccine misinformation. And that led me to wonder about what it takes to be an “expert” these days. It seems easy for anyone to get that “high production value” look on the Internet. Scripted videos and good graphics do wonders for perceived credibility. Hucksterism — as old as spoken language itself — always seems to find new breeding ground.
Then I realized that I needed to explore PBS’ role in all of this.
Dr. 'Anti-Vax'
Let me explain:
Recently, San Francisco OB-GYN Jennifer Gunter, also an astute writer, stirred up a tweet storm that came my way. In her Substack column, The Vajenda, and in a tweet to me, Gunter asked why PBS was endorsing the “vaccine misinformation gospel” of Dr. Christiane Northrup.
Northrup is also a physician, and something of a celebrity with at least 750,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. She is also rated by public health activists as one of the leading sources of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
I thought Gunter’s question was provocative and deserved an answer. I was also curious because anti-vaccine misinformation is the last thing I’d expect to emanate from the PBS universe.
And it doesn’t, really.
But at the time Gunter published her column, Northrup was easily found on PBS’ YouTube channel. She was featured in eight specials that were once made available to affiliates around the country by PBS. To be clear: the last Northrup video was made in 2016 and has nothing to do with her anti-COVID vaccine beliefs. Nonetheless, there she was just recently on the PBS YouTube channel, still enjoying the lustrous patina of trust lent to her by PBS and viewers like you.
I say “was easily found” because after Gunter’s column, the videos are no longer available on the PBS YouTube channel. I had inquired with managers at PBS Fundraising Programming about Northrup’s videos and soon thereafter they were taken down. They had expired, a PBS executive explained, and should not have been available.
“When it was clear she was a vector of disinformation about COVID and searching for her brought up the PBS name, I felt obliged to bring it up. … This association is a big part of what gave her such a megaphone."
-- Jennifer Gunter, OB-GYN, San Francisco
“In terms of other potentially controversial topics or hosts, if a program is already created and a controversy arises, we will review on a case by case basis,” said Vice President, Fundraising Programming Jerry T. Liwanag. “I know that individual stations will do the same.”
Job done. Score one for Big Bird and the good guys, right?
Not completely, according to Gunter, who said PBS should have never allowed Northrup on the air in the first place.
A decade ago, Northrup made The New York Times bestseller lists with books like “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” and “Glorious Women Never Age!” The buzz around her work caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey and talk shows like “Dr. Oz” and “Rachael Ray.” PBS fundraising programming producers jumped as well, and over the years her eight specials were broadcast by member stations around the country. But if you look deep enough at her early writing, Gunter said, you’ll see that even then she was promoting junk science.
“I had long been troubled by the association between PBS and Dr. Northrup,” Gunter told me. “When it was clear she was a vector of disinformation about COVID and searching for her brought up the PBS name, I felt obliged to bring it up. … This association is a big part of what gave her such a megaphone. She touts her PBS specials, or used to, all the time.
“She was vocally anti-vaccine long before she stopped doing videos for PBS,” Gunter added. “If someone googles Northup they see she has a long history of working with PBS, so why wouldn't (viewers) find her trustworthy?”
Gunter’s complaint, which echoes others I’ve gotten about self-help influencers featured on public television, pushed me into the curious world of fundraising programming.
You know the shows. Like me, I bet you’ve found yourself nodding your head at the pleasant folks on screen delivering what seems like solid advice on good gut health, blood flow to your brain, or the lackluster performance of your investment portfolio.
In PBS’ early days, comedians, movie stars and music celebrities pitched in with messages during pledge time. Today it seems easier and less expensive to produce shows that can be canned and replayed any time by any local station. Stations often turn to the self-help gurus, who, in return, bank on the de facto imprimatur of having been featured on PBS.
But wait, there’s more!
During pledge drives many stations opt to air public affairs programs and high-quality dramas from PBS, American Public Television and the BBC. Some will replay documentaries and fundraising messages by the likes of Ken Burns or Rick Steves.
But viewers seem to love self-help specials, many of which have the look and feel of a TED talk: speakers move strategically in front of live audiences, pausing to make a point and sometimes, for emphasis, adjusting a skin-toned microphone over their cheeks.
These are infomercials for the public media set. Maybe they’re a bit more nuanced — they don’t scream the virtues of $19.99 non-stick fry pans — but they are nonetheless commercials.
Public television fundraising programming often features oracular and erudite counselors with strong followings; buzz-worthy philosophers; writers and analysts; and self-help satraps with out-of-the-box remedies and therapies. These pledge-time celebrities include financial guru Suze Orman, and Daniel Amen, a doctor who touts a scan of your brain’s blood flow. (Maybe that will explain why it’s taking you a week to finish The New York Times’ Spelling Bee.)
In her early days in the spotlight, Northrup answered the casting call for erudite and oracular. She rode high on a boost from numerous appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. It seemed natural that a certified physician with a new message about women's health would attract viewers and donors.
But, as Gunter pointed out, Northrup has long been in the anti-vaccination league.
The anti-vax origin story
In retrospect, the public television pledge-week platform seems custom-made for anti-vaccine preachers who thrive on distrust of government and the science that supports health policy.
Americans didn’t always have such an anti-science streak. Midcentury parents got their children vaccinated and ultimately we defeated polio. We tamed the measles. When health experts proved to us that the only outcome of prolonged tobacco consumption was illness and death, we looked beyond politics and acted on the science they presented.
Today, the scientific community has near consensus on climate change, even as culture warriors maintain it is just Mother Nature going through a mood swing. And, almost no one still believes the Earth is flat. (I wish I could send holdouts on one-way plane rides around the world, and then turn around and greet them when they return to the point of departure.)
The anti-vax movement has defied gravity, or so it seems, since February 28, 1998.
On that date, the British medical journal The Lancet published a paper by English gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield. It appeared to be a breakthrough; it was co-authored by 12 other researchers. The paper suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. That same week Wakefield held a press conference recommending parents vaccinate children against measles, mumps and rubella in separate doses, avoiding the consolidated MMR vaccine.
The press attention Wakefield and his paper garnered sparked a misinformation campaign that has distorted and twisted mainstream science around vaccines ever since. The autism story spread quickly. Special reports broadcast images of large needles and crying children. Parental concern understandably spread. Vaccination rates fell in Great Britain, even as cases of measles and mumps rose in response to parental hesitation.
But Wakefield, who had theorized that the MMR vaccine might cause gastrointestinal issues that may correlate with developmental and behavioral “abnormalities” linked to autism, was later discredited.
The paper relied on parental anecdotes and a sample size of only 12 children. And no study ever recreated or expanded on Wakefield’s findings.
Finally, a 2004 investigation by journalist Brian Deer showed Wakefield had a huge conflict of interest. Deer presented evidence that Wakefield had applied for a patent for his own version of a single measles vaccine and he had been hired to produce a report for a class action lawsuit against the MMR vaccine manufacturers.
After the revelations, 10 of Wakefield’s 12 coauthors pulled their support for his findings and The Lancet issued a partial retraction. The paper was fully retracted in 2010 after the UK General Medical Council struck Wakefield from the medical registry.
Today, Wakefield rejects all vaccines and has become a central voice in the modern anti-vaccine movement, speaking at conferences and appearing on conspiracy-pushing tilted public affairs platforms like InfoWars. He has recently promoted misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines and suggested people should instead be treated by the anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine.
Low-cost fundraising
About a third of the money raised by PBS’ non-profit affiliate stations comes from individuals who call or click to donate. And of that stream, 20% comes as on-air pledges, from direct mailings or through telemarketing.
PBS and APT have departments that distribute pledge-time videos, for a fee. There are also unaffiliated commercial competitors, chief among them is Florida-based Executive Programming Services, which often gives away the infomercials to local public television stations. Executives at EPS declined to talk to me about their programming.
Like all content produced by PBS, fundraising programs are supposed to adhere to strict standards for accuracy.
Senior Director of PBS’ Standards and Practices office Talia Rosen, said, “We do have a checklist that we work through with (pledge-time programming) to help ensure compliance with standards, particularly on any program related to health or wellness.”
But, she added, PBS standards only apply to PBS programs, not those distributed by the likes of EPS, local stations, international broadcasters, or any other public television entities.
Another problem for standards police, I believe, is the very nature of many self-help infomercials: They are served up as commentary, opinion or analysis by sources who proclaim expertise, much like pundits speculating on the PBS NewsHour about a bill pending in Congress.
Pundits can claim they’re just saying what they believe; they have a First Amendment right to do so. Audiences are free to watch, agree, disagree, or change channels.
Thing is, pundits are not supposed to lie.
That is why I believe we must do better for a big audience that invests so much trust in PBS.
- We must thoroughly check the backgrounds and bona fides of personalities PBS intends to put on the air.
- Local public television stations must demand that fundraising program producers outside the PBS system hold their content to established standards of accuracy and ethics.
- Disclaimers defining content as opinion, analysis or commentary need to appear frequently in and around fundraising specials so they’re not mistaken for PBS public affairs programming.
I know that vaccine resistance for some is about religion. And for many Black people, hesitancy around the new — and quickly developed — COVID-19 shots is understandable, given the history of despicable actions of racist researchers in episodes like the Tuskegee Experiment. Still, I do not understand how so many functioning adults easily buy into today’s anti-vax misinformation. I am angered by media outlets who’ve turned vaccine hesitancy into a political weapon.
Without the vaccine misinformation, many coronavirus infections and deaths could have been avoided in 2021.
While it is a stretch to tie Northrup’s current anti-vax gospel directly to PBS, critics like Jennifer Gunter are right to point out the connection that was cultivated in the past, leading up to recent weeks. It is now up to us to make sure that sound-science deniers and proven snake oil vendors are kept off of public television fundraising air time.
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Daniel Macy, PBS Senior Associate in the Office of the Public Editor, contributed to this article.