High intensity exercise, cloth masks, vaccine misinformation and coronavirus genetics

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Health Report 37 min 3 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 3 days ago

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the overall focus of today’s Health Report episode?

Unknown 0:02

This is an ABC podcast.

Dr. Norman Swan 0:06

Hello, Norman Swann here with this week's Health Report Podcast. Today, how worried should we be about the spread of anti-immunization mythology on social media? An interesting study of bots. What's a bot? Stay tuned. Tegan Taylor will be in with a study of high-intensity interval training, which had a result that people didn't expect. How to look after your cloth mask so that it stays safe, and new findings on what goes on. In the immune system when a SARS-CoV-2 infection turns into COVID-19. And don't forget to keep on sending in your questions and comments for Tegan and me to answer. The email address is healthreport at abc.net.au. Some of the interesting questions that we'll get to later on in the podcast are on breast screening, antioxidants, and how to get benefits of a Mediterranean diet when you've got food intolerance.

Dr. Norman Swan 0:55

But let's get back to bots and vaccine myths. Important as we head into next year when hopefully COVID vaccines will need to be administered to a large proportion of the population of Australia.

How do bots spread COVID‑19 vaccine misinformation on Twitter?

Dr. Norman Swan 1:06

An Australian study has looked at fifty three thousand Twitter users to see what role bots play in disseminating misleading messages about vaccines. Adam Dunn from the University of Sydney was the lead author. Welcome to the Health Report, Adam.

Adam Dunn 1:20

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Norman Swan 1:22

Just just well so go for the uh boomers listening, um okay boomer, um, what is a bot?

Adam Dunn 1:31

Well I guess a bot on Twitter is just really an account that's not run by a human. Um it's usually automated messages, messages that are trying to sell something or convince people of things.

Dr. Norman Swan 1:41

So it's short for robot.

Adam Dunn 1:44

Well, in a sense, yes, but not a physical robot to just be a a piece of software that's tweeting for you.

Dr. Norman Swan 1:50

And how do you recognise that uh a particular Twitter account is a bot?

Adam Dunn 1:56

Ah, that's actually a complicated question. So there are some some methods that are available, some tools that are available to just sort of check to to see whether or not something is a bot. But in general the way that we look to see whether something is a bot is whether or not they post in really weird, uh infrequent or very frequent times, um the kinds of things that they say. Uh and um kind of other signals and other little tags that we can see to to check that something is a bot or not.

Dr. Norman Swan 2:22

So if they're r if they're tweeting at three AM, there's a bit something a bit suspicious.

What did the new cloth‑mask study reveal about cleaning and infection risk?

Adam Dunn 2:28

Yeah, that's right. Or if they're tweeting a hundred times an hour at three AM, that's probably another reason to be a bit s suspicious.

Dr. Norman Swan 2:34

And do are they c I mean what's I mean if you looked at the the universe of bots, I mean what proportion of them are commercial where they're trying to flog a product rather than to flog information?

Adam Dunn 2:46

Oh, I would uh look, I don't know the answer to that, but I would imagine that the vast majority of them are likely to be commercial, um, trying to sell something or trying to amplify a particular story from the news, something like that.

Dr. Norman Swan 2:58

Yeah, like the Russian interference in the United States. And how different is a bot from a troll?

Adam Dunn 3:04

Ah, another good question. So trolls are really uh the boomers are the boomers are

Dr. Norman Swan 3:08

just s you know s adhering to this conversation now so they can talk as if they understand Twitter. Carry on.

Adam Dunn 3:16

Yeah, that's right. So so really I mean a troll is a is a person, um, and often people are labelled as a troll, um, if they're there to provoke someone or they're really just trying to be just mean. I mean, I always imagine a a troll as as uh someone who's, you know, hiding under a bridge ready to jump out and try and persuade you of something.

Dr. Norman Swan 3:36

Now why did you decide to y talk about look at bots in terms of vaccine misinformation?

Adam Dunn 3:43

Uh, that's a very good question. So so there has been a fair bit of research in the past where people have looked at um bots and trolls and tried to understand why um, you know, how much uh how much they're posting and what they're posting about, especially in relation to fake news, to misinformation, and also to things that are kind of anti-vaccine.