Local programing on KRWG Public Media made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

This is Fronteras, A Changing America.

I'm KC Counts.

Thank you for joining us.

The growing number of places people go for information has made it easier for mis and disinformation to spread at a never before seen speed and scale.

Misinformation spreads especially easily on social media and online retail sites as well as via search engines.

The Health and Human Services Department on its website reports that during the COVID-19 pandemic health misinformation led people to decline vaccines, reject public health measures and use unproven treatments.

Health misinformation has also led to harassment and even violence against health professionals, airline staff and other frontline workers tasked with communicating evolving public health measures.

Joining us now are New Mexico State University professor of public health Dr.

Jagdish Khubchandani, and professor and associate dean of the NMSU graduate school Dr.

Karen Kopera-Frye.

Thank you for both for being here.

Thank you for having us.

I know you both have been involved deeply in research in this subject matter for a long time.

And I'd like to start with just kind of defining the terms that will be talking about.

Beginning with disinformation.

Dr.

Khubchandani, why don't you start?

Yeah, I think the, we have to, I'm glad you asked this.

We have to distinguish, misinformation is not malicious.

It's false info spread unintentionally.

But disinformation is where you manipulate intentionally spread malicious information, which is more damaging.

Where does that malicious disinformation come from Dr.

Kopera-Frye?

Well, a recent study I looked up, from 2024, especially regarding, with keywords searching from periods of 2013 to 2022, that's a nine year frame, 813 articles of those that met the criteria for search words, 227 of those 222, all exhibited had negative health impacts on the users of the information when they looked at some of the, where the sources obviously it's web based.

Another report by National Institutes on Health showed 72% of Americans get their information from social media.

And when they've looked at the credibility and validity of this information, 40% of it is misinformation.

So very dramatic impacts that can have on individuals in our society as a whole and understanding some of these chronic health conditions and like COVID, the pandemic, that was a great example of, how many kind of wild, cures, if you will, or, you know, treatments were going around and all spread on TikTok and Facebook and, you know, WebMD sometimes a lot of elders go to a WebMD.

Yeah, it, Dr.

Kopera-Frye mentioned information, people get their information.

So it's not just health information, but it's, you know, information of all sorts.

And so, have we been able to identify, you know, kind of the culprits of that, more malicious disinformation?

Yeah, I think that, for me, the central culprit is globalization and technology.

And then it has its subparts.

And in a way, we are late.

We should have started during the dot-com bubble to monitor and address these situations.

But then now we have globalization, technology, then we have the elements, policymakers who have vested interests, some medical doctors who want to be contrarians, wanted to be influencers and not practitioners.

Then there are maybe media channels who are in a rush to produce info and may at times make mistakes.

All of us are collectively engaged in this menace and have to prevent it collectively.

We hear a lot about troll farms and those efforts that are out there around the world to try to influence, whether it's health decisions or elections in the United States or elsewhere.

How big of a concern do you think those types of entities are?

Yeah, there's a clear, as you know, we are going through so many global conflicts now, and it's been a history.

And this has become a new type of warfare, cyber warfare to confuse a society.

Sow divisions and divide and rule create confusion in populations.

Here we see a lot of mis info, disinformation in the United States coming from different parts of Asia, Africa and other places.

When they were, you know, and, that, to follow up along that, there were some studies that looked at, you know, what is, what are the best predictors of this?

And it's really trust.

Trust in the government, trust in the culture, the society that you live in, the culture you live in.

And a lot of it has been information that also has been funneled through experiential.

So someone in your family, for instance, may have had this particular outcome with a, a chronic condition.

And so then it becomes, well, you know, that person just had a cold, for instance with COVID.

I looked at, I did a quick survey with the student and farmers market in 2022, and I was looking at you know, these are highly educated, community dwelling folk right here in, in Las Cruces area, and 44% had misinformation in terms of it's just a cold, it's a hoax, it doesn't exist.

Oh, just take some Ivermectin, horse dewormer.

Yeah.

Really?

I think that's one of the things that's so important to note is that no one's really immune, Right (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

Yes (Dr.

Khubchandani).

to especially misinformation.

Exactly (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

Right?

Because you see something on your social media, maybe it's something that already that matches your confirmation bias, right?

What you already believe to be true, this is reflecting that belief.

Or maybe it's just something that gives you hope, right?

Right, right (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

Like an easy cure when there is.

Optimism is good.

Yeah.

Elsewhere.

And I think I'm glad you mentioned hope, because we have seriously vulnerable people who don't have access to health care, who are desperate for treatments and don't get to easily see a doctor.

Those are the people I worry about a lot because they're trying to seek some help somewhere with lowest cost possible.

Let's talk a little bit, move on from COVID and talk a little bit about the measles outbreaks we've been seeing, around the country since, last spring, when the breakout happened, right on the, western border of Texas and eastern border of New Mexico.

And how that has continued to be a problem around the country.

How much of that do you attribute to mis and disinformation?

A lot of it, and not just this administration, but it has been ongoing for a long time, and it's tragic that we may end up losing our measles free status.

So clearly, something that has been tried, tested worldwide for so many years and decades, suddenly we have no faith in that vaccine is clearly disinformation spreading around.

And I think that that came on the heels of the COVID.

The idea that some people, either for religious beliefs, personal beliefs or, you know, persuaded by information they found on the web, decided vaccines were the cause of the problem.

Right?

And that would cause death, for instance, it's so don't do that, don't, don't get the vaccines against COVID.

I can tell you personally, I've had it five times every year for the last five years, and I had five vaccines, but I'm probably still walking around today because of it.

So, you know, it's that kind of bleed into.

Yes (Dr.

Khubchandani).

The whole then they started questioning childhood vaccines in general, measles, polio, all of that.

And this is all been researched for for decades, but.

And so, how much of the resurgence of this type of hesitancy do you actually attribute to social media, and how is your research looking at that causal factor?

Yeah, I think as I said, the advent of media in early 2000, the dot-com bubble, and all that happened after that social media, it is a central culprit.

But the people who use it in malicious ways are to be blamed.

Some intentionally, unintentionally.

What we are trying to do right now is do a national assessment of the general population.

How much trust do people have in different sources of information?

Where are they getting information from?

How does misinformation spread?

Do people realize that they could be spreading misinformation?

So it's a big national study.

And then follow up as an experiment where we show hundreds and thousands of people across the nation pictures and see if they can judge misinformation.

That sounds like a, Yeah (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

a tough thing nowadays.

Yeah (Dr.

Khubchandani).

And we can probably all think of someone close to us who has been duped by this, and maybe you've had to be the one to tell them I don't think this is real.

And so how, how do we talk to one another about this issue?

Yeah, I think I told you my mom used to send me all kinds of stuff.

This will help you with skin and eyes and brain and care.

Well (Dr.

Kopera-Frye), Yeah, but what's the difference of old world medicine?

Some of the old world medicine and, you know, not old, old time, we, pre science.

Yeah, but it (Dr.

Khubchandani).

But it does have its benefits.

But I think that.

Yeah.

You know we have to think about.

I think in educating people the key is education on, and I worry too, the vulnerable population that really can't afford to seek care, can't get doctor's advice.

So they're going to go for what they can.

And that's their phone.

And that's the, you know, Facebook for instance.

So how can we kind of put the right information out there?

And again, if trust is a major predictor as many of these studies are showing, it's very hard.

The change is slow.

It's going to be very hard to convince people that, you know, conspiracy theorist believers, this type of thing.

I don't think you're going to make much traction on that, but I think that you can by providing that's you know, some people talk about this, but this is what we've found with science.

This is what we found in the majority of people that works.

And I think kind of persuading in a very gentle way and very, empathetic way.

I think is, you know, even the mother of the esteemed Dr.

Khubchandani Yes.

Yeah, I think that she's just trying to be helpful.

But I keep telling her that if I seriously need medical help, I have qualified doctors to help me out.

But you and I spreading this information about beetroot juice and skin, and eye, and brain.

We are not in crisis, so let's not spread this anymore and talk something else.

Well, let's talk a little bit.

Mamas always right though.

(Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

Let's talk a little bit about how you go about finding your research subjects.

And are people willing to participate?

Yeah, we've done one study with college students in NMSU.

Then we have a nationwide survey deployed.

You have to pay people and then they start participating.

And we have found highly representative samples of people.

And I think this is a topic where even those who could be spreading misinformation want to say something.

So all kinds of people participate.

Well, and I think, you know, that some of the studies I was referring to are, are, you know, national data sets that I think you can that have been over sampled, for instance, for, particular subsamples or are representative geographically of the, the entire nation.

And you look at thousands of cases, you start seeing validity.

And that's what I think some of these studies are about too, as well.

you can you know, you have to trust in the science.

And that's, there are deflectors, as I call them, that are people that are going to try to say, oh, that's not right.

you know, that's a left wing, right wing, whatever.

You know, it's not politically based.

It's science that we try to get out there, which is the most correct information we have to date on what we know to help people.

It's not about persuading on a political stage or anything others.

And maybe I if I can make a suggestion to an NMDOH and CDC when they deploy all these mass scale health assessments and surveys, try to build in some questions about health literacy and health information so that researchers like us can use that data and analyze and see what's going on nationwide.

Because CDC does have hundreds of questions in each survey that they send out.

And, you know, along those lines, I did a series of studies before I came here on health literacy.

It's near and dear to my heart.

And one of the things I found is that most consumers or community dwellers, older adults in the general population, are more health literate than the professionals.

I looked at MDs, I looked at social workers, and I looked at nurses, and I looked at them, gave them a quiz on what kinds of facts do you know about general kind of health screening and found overwhelmingly, our community dwellers ended up scoring higher than our professionals.

So, you know, everybody can benefit.

Some surprises out there (KC).

Yes, I was quite surprised.

Even for you.

You brought up the CDC.

So I think we have to spend at least a few minutes talking about the changes, in terms of funding and, and, and reassignment of, of agencies and, what's happening now on the national stage and how, you know, that might be impacting the way people see, their own, or how, how they make their choices about their health.

You know, we have to start by assuming that no agency is perfect.

So I'm sure CDC has had its own issues.

But to dismantle in this way, it in this way that it creates mass chaos in the agency and that reflects on the population that we don't know if we can trust the CDC anymore is a tragedy.

Especially when I grew up, I thought CDC was the premiere agency of the world.

And now, we have neglected it.

We have dismantled the agency in so many ways.

It would take us a long, long time to reestablish it and build trust in the agency.

And I'm hoping that happens.

An example, recent right now, SNAP ed., which is all about nutrition programs and educating on EBT, and SNAP funding.

Right here in ACES in our own ag extension agents college is, is going to be stopped.

So getting the, the word out to people about nutritional intake and and healthy diets, our people aren't going to be doing that.

So even not only at federal but local level, it's impacted us pretty heavily.

I think that that is going to lead to more misinformation.

I mean, the study I was looking at that said 72% of consumers get their information from the internet, 40, 40% of that, which is inaccurate.

That number is only going to soar, unfortunately.

Sounds like a monumental task ahead of folks like you.

And on the topic of food, which is what I want to talk about another kind of federal thing, but is the kind of turning upside down of the food pyramid, if you will.

Im sorry (Dr.

Kopera-Fry).

I mean,butter came up to like the top almost, right?

So the cream, the cream rose to the top.

Yeah (Dr.

Khubchandani).

Nice (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

You know, even if we think that the American food pyramid and systems were messed up, was the whole world messed up that we had to turn around things?

And people have to consider that.

Like the last statement I heard from our health officials at the top level, we don't have a cure for Alzheimer's because scientists and NIH have been corrupt.

Okay?

American scientists were corrupt.

Were Europeans corrupt?

You know, these are things that they're trying to float around that have no meaning and relevance except trying to confuse a bunch of people who are vulnerable.

Well (KC).

And another that harms, I'm thinking of the Tylenol causes or autism.

You know, what is that done for parents who, you know, think, oh my gosh, did I do this to my child?

I mean.

(KC) Specifically pregnant women who might be facing a greater health issue.

Yes (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

It's all, it's all very confusing.

Anxiety during pregnancy is a bad thing.

Oh, geez.

You know, it just goes on and on.

So I think it, it's just, we need to somehow, get forward on this and take a stand on what is kind of, what is science showing that is the right way or valid, or however you want to think about it.

And what is discounted is just non factual, non, non, I don't know.

Well you talked about trust.

Yeah (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

And it does all come back to kind of on every individual basis having trust in their doctor.

Yeah I think that what we see now is doctors nationwide are drowning in misinformation when they encounter patients.

So I would hope we take some burden off them.

And institutions like NMSU, your news channel.

If we could have like a central platform for fact checking, debunking misinformation, we could be a some help to our healthcare providers.

And every news outlet I'm hoping has a health fact check.

Even like even just like a public health weekly.

Yeah.

You know something where you could check in and go, hey, you know, I read this somewhere, you know, somewhere didn't that nefarious somewhere.

But, you know, is this does this seem to be backed up by data and science?

Well, maybe you can provide some quick spots for people who are wondering, how do I know if this if what I'm seeing is, is checks out as fact or not?

And how can I help someone else find good information?

You know, if you're looking at a social media person, what is their qualification?

What are they saying to you?

And is it an exaggerated term?

Breaking news.

And if they have exclamation marks, I don't think that's scientific language.

There are clear signs of people and then look at their history.

Are they trying to be a contrarian?

And they could have a history.

So those are some quick things that you can look at.

And then, you can always go to your state website, or the CDC website or check with your doctor.

Well go to Google Scholar, you know, versus go to Facebook.

Right?

So you can search for terms.

You know, I want to know more about dementia and Alzheimer's.

And you will see articles come up, empirical, science based articles versus on the web, anybody know anything about dementia?

Yeah.

Who knows what you're going to get?

Well, on that note, this time went by so quickly.

Dr.

Karen Kopera-Frye and Dr.

Jagdish Khubchandani, Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And I want to say that we are going to continue the conversation on Thursday, April 23rd on KRWG FM, and will give our listeners the opportunity to call in with some questions, and get some good information.

And, you know, some beliefs, we know humans have been, victims of misinformation, since humans have been around and we can think of some, medieval cures for things that might have been a little bit outside the norm, such as, you know, even using, that foul odors caused the plague, for example.

And so they would carry around a bouquet of roses.

But all of this for a transition.

That helps well being (Dr.

Kopera-Frye).

All of this for a transition, back to medieval times.

You may have seen some medieval traditions on display at one of the area's signature events, the Renaissance Arts Fair held at Young Park.

Last year's was the 54th annual and due to the closure earlier this year of the Doña Ana Arts Council, may have been the last at least for a while.

Senior TV producer Courtney Hill attended and shared the festival in this segment of Trails of Enchantment.

Today is the 54th Las Cruces Renaissance Arts Faire.

It's been going on in this town for over five decades.

We've got food, we've got art, we've got jousting.

We've got music and entertainment.

There's a lot of folks you'd be surprised.

A lot of our big entertainment is actually from the region.

So folks from El Paso, Las Cruces, they live here, they come here, they perform here.

So yeah, it's it's rather a homegrown event.

So I decided I was going to come dressed as a pirate.

This is kind of a last minute costume that I threw together for Halloween earlier, but I was like, you know what?

Pirate Renaissance is close enough.

I think it's just super cool seeing how many people actually, like, really dressed up and put a lot of effort into their outfits.

You know, like, I come from a bigger city, so coming to Las Cruces, I was like, oh, it's a smaller city.

Probably the events are smaller size, but this is crazy.

There's so many people that like really have like a love for this culture and everything.

So seeing everyone dressed up and really put so much effort into what they do here is really awesome.

I'll try a couple tricks under the leg.

Under the other leg.

Under the biggest leg.

The running kick up.

Nice.

Woo!

So I started unicycling when I was ten years old.

My grandma bought one at a garage sale for the grandkids.

And my brother and I showed up one day and we saw it.

And so every time we visited we would practice.

And we both eventually learn and could ride around the block.

And 36 years later, I'm still doing it.

I started out on street performing, and that's a really good way to learn how to perform, because you learn instantly what works and doesn't work.

So, you know, the first couple months, very tough because I was I don't know how to entertain.

I knew the tricks, but I couldn't I wasn't connecting with people.

I wasn't building an audience, and I wasn't making much because of that.

And so I just kept trying every day over and over and over again.

And you just get better.

You learn what to say, what not to say.

And then pretty soon you crowd starts to build and you just get better.

Yeah.

No, I love it.

Like it's just one of the best jobs in the world because I'm making people of all ages, all religions, all whatever.

And like, everyone's having fun together, you know, and I'm looking out and I'm seeing grandpas laugh and little kids and teenagers and, you know, all sorts of people.

And it's just.

Yeah, it's so rewarding.

Like, it fills me up knowing that I created that and I made them happy.

And then they make me happy by cheering and clapping and, yeah, it's and it's some wonderful things.

It was fun.

I'm surprised he wasnt gonna let me do the knife I was excited, but then he took it back.

And then I did the little kid one, sadly.

And then he jumped over me.

I thought he was going to kill me for a second.

It was scary.

My eyes really jumped out.

This is the Renaissance Faire that happens every year in Las Cruces.

And where you are right now is at the booth of the Astronomical Society of Las Cruces.

We come here every year.

We set up our telescopes, and whatever's in the sky, we show the public, whether it's just the sun and all the sunspots and solar flares that are coming off of it.

Or occasionally there's actually planets like Venus or Mercury that we can see in the daytime, and we'll show those to the public as well.

This year we have an extended booth where we're doing, work with, with the kids and doing, basically STEM kind of stuff with them.

They're building bracelets that change color in the sun.

and, we're just having a great time.

A lot of fun out here.

That's what the Doña Ana Arts Council has done they have so many varieties of things that they've got going on.

And it's it's a wonderful experience.

But we couldn't possibly do this without people who are willing to come out and be a part of this organization and, and help.

And I'm so glad that we have our volunteers.

Ohh ahhh.

{people cheering} {people cheering} Finish it already.

Yeah.

straight-away.

{people cheering} Thanks to Senior TV producer Courtney Hill for preserving that well-loved local tradition.

The Doña Ana Arts Council, which hosted the event closed its doors in January, leaving the future of the fair uncertain at best.

KRWG Public Media has reached out to Cruces Creatives, the organization to which Doña Ana Arts Council programs were transferred to be on an upcoming episode of Fronteras, A Changing America.

Thank you for watching, and thank you for supporting local programing like this.

You can watch episodes of all our local programing at KRWG.org, where you can also sign up to receive the Friday News Wrap, our weekly newsletter highlighting the week's coverage via email.

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