A video of a few minutes posted every day at 6 p.m. for four weeks until the Christmas holidays. This is the challenge that the Task Force Covid-19 de Lille created in early 2020 to coordinate research on the virus. “Weariness and anger at the crude and contradictory statements of certain colleagues, have pushed us to act”, explains Prof. Vincent Sobanski, communications assessor at the Faculty of Medicine, who coordinated this series of conferences.
Like his colleagues, this professor of internal medicine within one of the largest teaching hospitals in France would like “That people detach themselves from continuous news channels to learn about the virus”. Risk factors, role of children, drug development… The videos target the general public, with stringency. “There is a real demand for scientific information, this is one of the lessons of the health crisis, analysis David Launay, professor of internal medicine and leader of the Lille Task Force. The scientific word has been abused, we must take charge to communicate clear and calm information. “
United within this Task Force, the CHU, the University, the Institut Pasteur de Lille and all the regional players in scientific research held these conferences in partnership with the Société des Sciences de l’Agriculture et des Arts: à each video, a specialist, doctor, researcher or biologist… The audience remains limited, however, with a few hundred views per video. “Given the health context, it was already complicated for us to act in the allotted time”, nuance Pr Launay.
Identify the right sources of information
The Lille initiative is not isolated. “We have to go to Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, because we cannot leave these fields empty”, confirms Nathan Peiffer-Smadja, infectious disease specialist at Bichat Hospital. Or let controversial entities occupy them alone, like the IHU of Marseille which has its YouTube channel.
The young infectious disease specialist, followed on Twitter by nearly 20,000 subscribers, cites other channels for the dissemination of serious and accessible scientific information: the Fake news sections of the Institut Pasteur or Inserm or popular science channels such as La Tronche in Bias, which, for example, returned to the case of Sweden, which was erected a little too quickly into a health model by the film Hold-up.
All these scientists also intend to repair the relationship with certain media, damaged by the word given to non-experts or doctors whose opinions are discredited. Lille doctors are therefore convinced of the double need to organize collectively on social networks but also to expand the media scene to more specialists. A conviction shared by Nathan Peiffer-Smadja: “We need to vary the experts by favoring diversity in order to relay the word of serious scientific institutions. ”
Mobilize citizens in the service of science and health
Perhaps these experts will join the ranks of Citizen4Science, association launched on November 24, notably by some French scientists, under the slogan: « Citizens united for science and health ”. They too are determined to preserve the integrity of science. “Many people feel isolated when it comes to getting information and want to act collectively”, assures its president, Fabienne Pinson who has mainly worked in international pharmaceutical development.
→ EXPLANATION. Vaccination: how a citizens’ council can reassure the French
Present since the start of the epidemic on social networks under a pseudonym, this scientist quickly opposed Professor Raoult’s methods on hydroxychloroquine. Here she comes out of the shadows to continue the fight through this association open to all citizens: “We are launching a blog, working groups, an exchange forum with proposals aimed in particular at the media …” “It is important that there are also initiatives outside the medical and scientific world”, notes Nathan Peiffer-Smadja. To counter, in particular, the discourse of anti-vaccine activists.
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