Scientists and public health experts must actively engage in the fight against misinformation, Catherine Kyobutungi, Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center, has argued.
She warned that staying silent allows false narratives to dominate public discourse. Speaking on the Global Health Matters podcast, hosted by Garry Aslanyan, Kyobutungi said experts have a responsibility to communicate evidence clearly and directly to the public.
“We owe it to ourselves and to society to come out there and speak about the things that we know,” she said, urging scientists to step into public conversations to counter misinformation.
Kyobutungi said the spread of false information has grown into a powerful industry, driven partly by financial incentives and the monetisation of online content. She argued that the global health community also bears some responsibility for the current crisis, particularly for failing to communicate basic scientific ideas such as risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What the global health community had was a failure of communication,” Kyobutungi said. She explained that scientific uncertainty and evolving evidence during the pandemic were often misunderstood by the public.
The hostile environment on social media has also discouraged many scientists from participating in online discussions. Kyobutungi said experts who spoke publicly about vaccines during the pandemic frequently faced harassment and accusations.
Such attacks, she noted, led many researchers to abandon platforms such as X (social media platform), leaving the digital public square increasingly dominated by influencers, bots and actors spreading misleading information.
“Scientists fled and left X,” she said. “Now there’s a new community that has taken over the public square.”
Rebuilding public trust in science, Kyobutungi said, will require a long-term effort that goes beyond social media debates. A key step is strengthening information literacy so people understand that not everything online is accurate.
“Awareness that not everything is true and not everything is real is the beginning point,” she said, stressing the importance of integrating information literacy into education systems.
Kyobutungi also emphasised the need for more open and honest conversations about science and health.
“We need more conversations — honest conversations,” she said, adding that challenging misinformation should also be seen as an opportunity to educate the wider audience following public debates online.
Ultimately, she said, scientists cannot afford to remain silent while misinformation spreads.
“Unless somebody starts pushing back and asking, ‘What is the evidence?’ the narrative continues,” Kyobutungi said. “Showing up is how we begin to regain trust.”