Scottish Government Debate: Addressing the Harms of Health Misinformation - 17 September 2026

that I was unable to call and I apologize to them. We move on to the next business which is a debate on motion 1200 in the name of Angela Constance on addressing the harms of health misinformation and members wishing to speak should press their request to speak buttons now. We move on to the debate on addressing the harms of health misinformation. Angela Constance to speak and move the motion up to 12 minutes. >> Thank you, presiding officer. I'm very pleased to open this debate on addressing the harms of health misinformation and to move the motion in my name. Nothing is more important to us than our health and the health of those who we love. We are fortunate to have an NHS that provides highquality health care free at the point of use. And across Scotland, health care professionals work every day to prevent illness, promote well-being, and provide care when people need it most. Effective health care requires hospitals, clinics, medicines, and treatments, but it also depends on public trust. And the motion states that the Scottish health information integrity strategy marks a significant step in providing NHS Scotland educators and patients with the tools to compete with health misinformation and places Scotland at the forefront of international efforts to address harms arising from false and misleading health information. People understandably feel strongly about their own health and that of their friends and family. And sharing health information is entirely natural. And the sophistication of false and misleading health information today means that we are all susceptible to sharing it. More often than not, people share health information out of concern for others and with the best of intentions. And that's why we talk about the information integrity. Most false and misleading health narratives are shared for very different reasons and the response must be different. In health, we challenge the narrative rather than the individual. Health misinformation can be viewed as a a signal of the information people need. Where good information is delayed, absent or inaccessible, falsehoods fill the vacuum. Our strategy is about providing good information. Access to accurate, evidence-based health information helps people make informed choices about their health and well-being. It supports productive conversations between patients and health care professionals, enables effective public health action, and underpins trust in our health and care system. Today uh that has become all the more important and more challenging than ever before because the availability of information is unprecedented. People can access vast quantities of material on almost any subject at the touch of a screen. Information that once required professional advice or extensive research can now be found instantly. And that transformation has brought significant benefits. People are more empowered to engage in decisions about their care. Access to knowledge has become more democratic and patients are often better informed and more actively involved in managing their health. But those benefits also bring risks. Health and scientific advances have always attracted false and misleading narratives. And throughout history, false claims, misconceptions, and misunderstandings have accompanied developments in medicine and public health. The difference today is the spread and scale of which uh misleading information spreads. Content that is inaccurate, misleading, unscientific or entirely false can reach millions of people within hours. Information designed to provoke fear, anxiety, or anger is often shared before health care systems, researchers, and communicators have the opportunity to understand what is happening. As a result, people are making health decisions in a information environment that is crowded. It's complex and not always aligned with the best available evidence. And the consequences are significant. Health misinformation intervention. >> Uh, of course, >> Patricia Gibson, >> the landscape that the cabinet secretary is outlining for us today about um the crowded landscape and the the the perennial um attack of misinformation. Would she agree with me that that is even more complicated by the fact that the most powerful man in the White House is adding to it given his hugely significant global platform? >> Cabinet Secretary. So the the motion before us today certainly calls on every member of this parliament uh to act with integrity in terms of how we use information. Um and it's not for me to advise the president of the United States of America, but it really would be helpful if he would uh it really would be helpful if he would spend less time on X or Twitter or whatever it's called these days. Um but back to you know a a crucial point presiding officer um health misinformation we know can really undermine confidence and interventions such as uh vaccination programs u support for public health advice during emergencies delay people seeking appropriate medical advice increase pressure on NHS services and cause financial harm through ineffective or unnecessary products tests and treatments. And it can deepen health inequalities by targeting specific communities with false narratives or creating distrust amongst groups already facing barriers to health care. Perhaps most harmfully, it corrods public trust and false narratives undermine trust and institutions, professionals, and scientific evidence. Reduced trust then creates the conditions for further misinformation to flourish. And it's a cycle that can be difficult to reverse. Public trust in the NHS is one of its greatest strengths and remains our strongest defense against harmful health misinformation and protecting and maintaining that trust must be central to our response. Besid officer, public concern about false information is growing. Increasing numbers of people report encountering misleading information online regularly. Health care professionals also express growing concern and during development of our information integrity strategy. Many clinicians and public health experts highlighted patient interactions shaped by false or misleading information encountered online. So the challenge continues to evolve. The emergence of artificial intelligence brings enormous opportunities for health care and AI is already helping to drive innovation in research, diagnostics and public health. But it is also transforming the the information ecosystem. Creating and disseminating convincing false content has become easier than ever. Deep fakes and other forms of AI generated content are becoming increasingly sophisticated and will soon be impossible to distinguish from authentic material. A fabricated video appearing to show a health care professional, scientist, or public figure making false claims about health interventions could influence behavior long before its authenticity is questioned. And this means that we must be alert and agile. We must ensure Scotland's health and care system is adapted to today's information environment and remains adaptable for the future. There are also important lessons from the CO 19 pandemic. The pandemic demonstrated the importance of trusted information during periods of uncertainty and how quickly false narratives can emerge and spread during health emergencies when demand for reliable information is high. And if good information is not made available to the right people by the right means at the right time, bad information will flow in. And the Scottish government standing committee on pandemic preparedness recognized this in its report pandemic ready safeguarding our future through preparedness. And amongst its recommendations was the need for Scotland to develop the capability to identify and address challenges arising from false narratives during future pandemics and strengthen resilience to the harms of poor quality information. And those recommendations highlight an important point. It is just not enough simply to produce trustworthy health information. Health institutions must also understand when harmful false narratives are emerging and respond appropriately, ethically and proportionately when they present risks to public health. And it is against that backdrop that the Scottish health information integrity strategy has been developed. And the strategy represents Scotland's first comprehensive approach to addressing harms associated with false health information. And to the best of our knowledge um it may well be the first national health information integrity of its strategy um anywhere. And it does recognize that this is more than a communications challenge. It requires a comprehensive response with coordinated action across health and social care and beyond. So the strategy is uh structured around three pillars. The first is leadership and coordination. Addressing harmful health misinformation requires clear leadership, strong partnerships, and effective collaboration. And the strategy sets out a framework that brings together expertise from the Scottish government, NHS Scotland, public health agencies, academia, educators, and other partners to ensure a coherent national approach. The second pillar is building Scotland's resilience to false health information. The strongest defense against misinformation is an informed and confident public. Building resilience means improving access to trusted information, supporting digital literacy, strengthening understanding of how false information spreads, and helping people navigate an increasingly complex information landscape. It also means engaging respectfully, listening to concerns, communicating clearly, and meeting people where they are. The third pillar is rapid response to false health information. And where harmful narratives emerge that pose a risk to public health, Scotland must have the capability to identify them, assess their impact, and respond appropriately. And that capability is increasingly important as technologies, platforms and patterns of communication evolve. Siding officer, the approach set out in the strategy is guided by important principles. Of course, >> Willie Renie, >> I don't think I disagree with any of that, but what practical impact do you think does the minister think that the government will be able to make and in what time scale will that be achieved? >> Cabinet Secretary, >> I think I think it's a fair point. I mean the strategy is designed to be uh practical in its implication and its implementation and you know therefore helpful not just to government but to to our stakeholders and uh partner. But there is um an important point to to recognize that uh the the technology around us is evolving uh all all the time and there are positives to that but there are also risks with that. So there is that sense uh that we just all need to be picking up the pace um across across the public sector with regards to this. Um signing officer as I I started to say the also underpinning the strategy as well as it practical implication is is important that is guided by by principles and the first is to do no harm. responses to health misinformation must be safe and proportionate. Even well-intentioned interventions can have unintended consequences if not implemented carefully. And for that reason, our emphasis will remain on building trust, addressing concerns early and supporting access to to reliable information. Second, uh our approach must be ethical and transparent. Public trust depends on openness and accountability. decisions about misinformation is identified, assessed and addressed and that must be guided by clear ethical principles and transparent processes. Thirdly, we will continue at learning from from others and this challenge does not stop at national borders. Valuable work is taking place around the world and Scotland will continue to learn from emerging evidence and best practice. Fourthly, our approach must be co-produced. solutions are far more effective when developed alongside those that they serve. Communities, patients, educators, and young people all have a vital role in shaping effective responses. And fifthly, we will build on the strengths and assets already present in Scotland. Trusted relationships, local networks, public services, and community organizations all form part of the solution. And finally, we will adopt a culture of continuous improvement, learning from experience and adapting that evidence and that approach as it evolves. Implementation of the strategies recommendations is underway and work is progressing across NHS Scotland and the wider health system to strengthen capability, improve coordination and support health literacy. And this work will continue to evolve as the the evidence develops. The information landscape is not at standstill, but by taking a measured, evidence-based, and trust centered approach, Scotland is well placed to meet this challenge. And at its heart, the strategy is about helping people, helping people to access information that supports better health that aims to protect and build confidence in the health care professionals and scientific evidence, strengthen our resilience in our communities, and ensure Scotland is prepared for the future challenges. So therefore, I welcome publication of the the strategy, the work that's underway to implement the recommendations and invite members to uh support uh the motion in my name and also to indicate that I'll be supporting the Labor Party motion and the Conservative motion today as well. >> I call on Helen McDeade to speak to and move amendment 1200.3 up to 7 minutes. >> Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the amendment in my name. Uh thank you also to the cabinet secretary for her statement. I look forward to more detail on what we've just heard. Um I think there's obviously a lot behind that that it's hard to um know whether we agree or disagree, but I want to take up a couple of things the cabinet secretary said. She said everyone here should act with principles and integrity, ethical principles and integrity. And I'm happy to say I'm sure we're all going to do that. Um she also said do no harm is a very important point and it certainly is and sometimes we need to look at what the evidence is. So it's possible to glance through the motion. I think maybe Willie Renie did that and thought well that means well bit willy but you know I'm sure the details will be fine. However, there are some thing that we should look at. A few things. Scottish government concerns talked about the use of AI altered content. Fair enough. It's a concern. It's a concern all the time that the algorithms bring up advertised content. So often big companies and then the most searched on that subject, even if it's not the closest match to what you're looking for. I'm sure everyone uses AI. I'm sure we've all done it for this. The Scottish government notes with concern the rise in vaccine misinformation since the COVID pandemic. It's a good point. In 2023, a Scottish government study found that only 29% of the public trust health information from the Scottish government on COVID 19. That was postshielding research in 23. And so something behind this is a maxim in science is science is never settled. There is no absolute final word and we would be wise to consider that. Perhaps people believe less in the government health information since the co years because almost everyone has their own experience of ill health and despite being assured every day by our former first minister during CO of absolute facts they sometimes changed when the advice changed. So everyone had to test for COVID for 10 and stay at home for 10 days until if a positive test was had and then at some point they could go to work if they were well and they could stop testing. Viruses mutate co is undoubtedly still about but that was how it happened. I won't thanks I have a lot to go through. So also people aren't dafted. They distrust advice from companies and people with a financial interest. Vaccine companies have made huge profits risk-free due to commercial indemnities. An indemnity that might have been reasonable during the COVID crisis, but those companies still have it. That get out of jail free. Doesn't matter how much evidence or anything else that comes forward. They can continue to say please vaccinate every year and they're laughing all the way to the bank. So, let's look at some of the evidence. Sorry, who spoke? Did someone ask? >> Sorry, I didn't know who >> the member must be allowed to speak. >> Also, people aren't daffed. Um, and the Scottish government has to take responsibility for the agency's own advice. So, we can't rely on commercial companies, which I don't know if the cabinet secretary was suggesting that, but we certainly can't. So, there is an arguable fact about CO in its origin story. People can believe that a bat from a thousand miles from Wuhan was transported to a wet market, gave a respiratory virus to a panggalan or similar when somebody then ate it and got the respiratory virus. It didn't sound terribly convincing at the time. The World Health Organization, interestingly, still maintains that on the balance of probability that might be the case and China certainly, who bankrolls it would accuse anyone at the time who challenged that narrative of what turns out to be misinformation. Most people think I think if you find a survey, most people believe it came from an accidental release from a Wuhan lab which was carrying out gain of function research on corona viruses. So, we can't just believe what we are told. The science is never settled. And this motion calls for accessible, science-based, trustworthy health information. That's music to my ears. I'm a veterary surgeon. I read a lot of research. And I've often thought there should be more engineers, doctors, nurses. They're not here, I don't think, but there are some, and scientists in the parliament. I've often thought biology should be compulsory in schools so people can understand health and medical issues. Reform's amendment calls for information to be unbiased. People should be able to make their own fully informed decisions for them and their family. So where will people get that information? Well, what about the BBC? It's not our favorite, but it's certainly the favorite of some others here. So they've got a BBC verified so you know we must be right. Five days ago they reported the running costs of the COVID vaccine damage scheme 83 million pounds. Now admittedly a lot of that was process but it's still a lot. A rising number of claims are the cause and note that those claims are still coming in. They're not just legacy and this chamber has heard from such people in the past. So the yellow card scheme is a UK system but Scotland signs up to and it monitors suspected adverse drug reactions including deaths. The medical health care regulatory agency recognizes that all vaccines and medicines have side effects. Anyone's taken a medicine and read the side effects probably thought I don't know if I'm going to take that. That's quite bad. But of course we all do. We all make an informed judgment and we decide whether we are going to take those things. Something acknowledged in the leaflet given out to people given a COVID vaccine is that they should wait for 15 minutes before driving. Don't know if any of you have ever done that or even read the leaflet because you're handed the leaflet as you go in. And that's in case you get anaphilaxis. So, it's a known side effect. So, the government can't just hand out blanket recommendations by ignoring the evidence. If there's a whole theories of how much you can get if you claim for damage and it's found to be true and vaccines that are eligible are corona virus, dtheria, hip, flu and so on. So it's well recognized and indeed the co inquiry it's so well recognized that the co inquiry heard from the vaccine injured and bererieved who told us they felt they were almost being pushed into the shadows during the pandemic and that they are the uncomfortable truth. An inquiry heard from a father of two boys who had a high-powered job until suffering a side effect vaccine induced thrombosis and thrombocytoenia and was in a coma for >> the member didn't take any intervention so she will have to bring her remarks to a close. >> Okay. So we must be unbiased. Our our amendment calls for unbiased information and people should be able to access that without the risk of being accused of spreading harmful misinformation. And the government needs to set an example. Was it misinformation when the NHS in Glasgow and Clyde said that the hospital was safe? And I am setting example for the people who've been ignored. Was it misinformation when they said it was safe at the inquiry and then admitted later that they knew it was unsafe. The government either is responsible for these agencies or they should be very careful about what they're taking responsibility for. The tenor of this motion suggests a much more authoritarian approach and you don't have the information for it. I move the amendment. >> Jackie Bailey to speak to and move amendment 12000.1 up to 5 minutes. >> Thank you very much presiding officer and I thank the cabinet secretary for holding this important debate and I welcome the content of her speech. We do live in deeply uncertain times. The rise of social media, the misuse and abuse of information, and the plethora of unreliable and incorrect information on public health issues demands that action is taken. Dangerous misinformation in the public health sphere is regrettably not new. Now, we all remember the example um of the campaign led by now discredited Dr. Andrew Wakefield that claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism. There was no evidence for such a statement and the result of the campaign was that thousands of children did not receive the life-saving vaccinations that they needed. All Wakefield's campaign did was sew the seeds of mistrust in medicine. And it turned out that Wakefield wasn't just a dangerous quack. He was a fraudster who sought to financially gain from his claims. So we need to challenge those who seek to spread dangerous mistrust in our medical and scientific sectors and expose the reasons for their deception. Medical disinformation can come from any corner and we would be turning away from an uncomfortable truth if we did not admit that one party in particular has a clear problem with disinformation. Dr. Timothy Kelly, remember him? The reform candidate Anisal bride claimed that CO 19 vaccine which is regarded to have saved countless lives was neither safe nor effective. Reform invited Aim Malotra to speak at their conference where he blamed the COVID vaccine for causing cancer in the royal family. And indeed the leader of reform Nigel Farage is co-founder of action on World Health, a very shadowy organization dedicated to opposing the World Health Organization and undermining its central messages. Misinformation has consequences, potentially dangerous consequences, and I think some parties in this chamber, one in particular, need to be very mindful of that. Presiding officer, let me turn to vaccinations. I think the cabinet secretary would concede that vaccination levels are currently too low. In Scotland last year, we had 28 laboratory confirmed measles cases. We experienced an earlier flu season driven by influenza A all while thousands of eligible Scots didn't get their flu vaccine in time. HPV vaccine coverage has also declined over the last 10 years. Childhood vaccine take up is down as well. So that does not only present issues now. how vaccine uptake creates a ticking health time bomb that stores up problems for the future. That's why it's in all of our interests to drive up vaccine uptake and tackle misinformation at every turn. And that's why our amendment calls for greater flexibility, greater flexibility for the primary care teams so that they can make sure that all those who need vaccinated get vaccinated. And I'm thinking in particular about GPS in rural areas that use the opportunity of patients being in their GP practices to vaccinate at the same time. So we need more flexibility to make sure we capture more people. And whilst we agree with the spirit of the government's position, there is a certain irony in their rhetoric because trust is essential and the government is also guilty of misinformation itself. misinformation over the future of Monland's Hospital, over their failure to deliver transparency for the victims of the Eljaml scandal, and above all its complicity in the cover up of the reason for deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Now, we agree with the government that action must be taken to tackle disinformation and I just hope that they realize and we all realize that there is a key role that we all need to play in that effort. So, it's time to call out the quacks. It's time to call out the dangerous influences that seek to spread misinformation. But it is also time to demand more from our government to demand transparency and truthfulness at the very highest levels. I move the amendment in my name. >> I call on Miles Briggs to speak to and move amendment 1200.2 up to six minutes. >> Uh thank you very much deputy uh presiding officer and this is an important debate and I think a reminder of how our society and we as individuals are seeing a significant change now in how we access and how we can trust information in relation to our health. Misleading information can lead to real harms as we've heard and it's led to people not engaging or taking up our worldleading public health vaccination programs which at the heart of this undermines the very program's ability to deliver population immunity. Now the motion for today's debate rightly diagnoses the problem but I also believe we need to use this opportunity to prescribe some solutions as well and as the cabinet secretary has said at the heart of that is trust. A recent Canadian study showed that people trust their friends, neighbors, and work colleagues on social media more than they do journalists or government leaders. And I don't think that was just President Trump, to be quite honest. Um, and today we are all broadcasters of information. Let's face it, social media spreads ideas far and fast. Everything we share, like, and comment on multiplies the power of that information to all our followers, influencing the views and beliefs of friends, family, and yes, total strangers. And unfortunately, there's a lot of false and misleading health information out there. I did a simple Google search ahead of today's debate around some health conditions and looking for advice and I was quite shocked to be quite honest from where it takes you to from claims that sunscreen causes skin cancer to perhaps what has also already been raised around the most challenging area and constant myth that we see around vaccines causing autism and that continues to be shared online that continues to be driven towards parents and parents uh chat rooms. online and I think that really has had hugely damaging consequences and so we need to look towards um how we can turn that around because as Jackie Bailey's outlined we are already seeing the examples of how this impacts on our health in Scotland. Misinformation around MMR vaccine has contributed to hes vaccine hesitancy for many parents and public health has Scotland has already reported as has been said 28 lab uh confirmed cases in 25 and eight in the first quarter of this year in relation to whooping cough Scotland's experienced substantial increases in cases since 2024 and I can recall many of the challenges which we saw during the co 19 pandemic around misinformation and mistrust particularly amongst um our ethnic minority and Eastern European communities resulting in significantly lower vaccination uptakes during the pandemic and since. Now one of the debates, one of the part of this debate which has interested me and I think we need to also recognize is what has increasingly become a disconnect from our family doctor. Uh the difficulty as has been debated in accessing GP appointments must be also considered. um and how that is inc that is also causing people to seek information in different ways. GPS are the most trusted source of health information. If people can't get an appointment, if they can't speak to a medical professional, they will look for health information on the internet, often being directed to these so-called patient chat rooms. So the question I believe we should be asking ourselves is how can we build information resilience in our society? Now, on Monday, I attended the launch of Movember, a report on men's health in Scotland. And I segue to this because I I think there's a number of um really key recommendations in that report, which I hope the government will consider. The report is stark, especially around the evidence which shows that around 13,000 Scottish men die prematurely or died prematurely in 2024. That's 35 men dying prematurely every day in Scotland. And the report calls for a public health approach to addressing online harms and diff disinformation affecting boys and young men, building on the Scottish government's online safety task force action plan. And this needs to also, I think, be taken forward in relation to health and health information for men and boys and the different ways we engage in health and in seeking health information. The report specifically calls for a men's health action plan, which I believe is needed. And although the government responded by saying they didn't look to take that forward, I hope ministers will look again and positively engage on a cross party basis because I think this can be at the heart of addressing a number of the government's priorities in relation to men and boys. And the report states whilst a woman's relationship with her health and health care is established early on during adolescence built around her reproductive and sexual health needs, young men tend to have fewer touch points in our health access to health systems. reducing opportunities therefore to develop health literacy and so the lifelong skills needed to understand and look after ourselves um are more complex to develop and that also includes access and understanding of online information. That is why Scottish Conservatives have brought forward in the amendment for today's debate a a specific ask to review on how all public health information can build trust, improve health literacy and open routes into supporting ser people into services as part of a more coherent national approach to service redesign and public policy. Uh to conclude, deputy design officer, the days of health information leaflets on GP practice coffee tables being where people access their information have passed. But we need to make sure NHS Scotland is fit for the future. We need to make sure that the digital and information ages which people are now living on um living in provides the bespoke and accurate public health information we all want to see. And I move the amendment in my name. I call on Kaylee Canross O'Neal to speak up to six minutes. >> Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd also like to thank the Scottish government for bringing forward their motion today. This is no doubt, as many people have said, a prolific and defining issue of our time, accelerated by the pervasive impact of social media in everyday lives. And it's fair to say, hastened at such a pace that governments all around the world are struggling to catch up with. So it's important that we discover and consider the wide-ranging impacts of this upon our health. Specifically in Scotland, as we learned from the COVID pandemic, disease outbreaks in countries operating as lone actors. They think that they can pull a drawbridge up to keep diseases out is completely delusional in a world and economy which is knitted together at every level with overlapping supply chains and operations. Now, on a small scale, misinformation can look like a fitness guru in Instagram saying that if you drink celery juice for a month, your skin will clear up and you'll have great bowel movements. But a harder example would be that politicians for years in society peddling myths about how HIV and AIDS spreads or that it only affects gay men. The myths around autism, which uh we've spoke about already, have riled up eugenics thinking that a dead child is often better than a disabled one. Now, we know that these social media algorithms are built to give people what they want. For example, again, misinformation on diet culture can be funneled to someone if they are someone with an eating disorder when they're just trying to Google for help. And tackling misinformation is not simply a matter of producing more facts. It is also about building trust and helping people develop the skills to assess and access the information they encounter. Naturally, there's a responsibility that we everyone in this chamber uh bear in addressing misinformation across all the political spectrum. I mean yesterday we heard a lot of opinions of how international affairs shouldn't concern us. But I think health is a really strong example of you know that the health doesn't care about borders. uh and it impacts all of us. And I've started this speech by highlighting concerns, but as the cabinet secretary has already mentioned, I recognize that with modern advances in health technology, we have never been better equipped to address these issues. Patients and members of the public can now encounter health claims from influencers, commercial organizations, and AI systems alongside the information from doctors, scientists, and public health organizations. The difficulty here is that these sources can look equally authoritative and factual while the quality and accuracy could be very very different. And we're able to mitigate the impacts of glo global health issues and disease outbreaks with effective screening planning and preparation. But to do so effectively requires empirical truth to be the driving factor behind decisions. If Scot if truth in Scotland isn't driving policy and decision making, then how can we maintain truth across the board? This matters because health information influences real decisions. Whether someone chooses to vaccinate their child, seek medical advice about symptoms, follow treatment for cancer, or use an unproven alternative therapy, those decisions can have significant consequences for people, but also wider communities and society. Vaccination provides perhaps the clearest example of why this matters. FA falling vaccination coverage as mentioned by Jackie Bailey creates the conditions in which diseases that were previously well controlled can return. And I should say it's important that misinformation is not the sole reason for changes in vaccination uptake or mistrust in health. Decisions about vaccines are influenced by many factors including access to services, socioeconomic circumstances, trust in institutions, as Milesbriggs alluded to as well, previous experiences of health care in the minority ethnic community, and the accessibility of reli reliable information. And a key aspect of us addressing health and misinformation is in this long-term intervention such as education. Media literacy, digital literacy, and health literacy are becoming increasingly interconnected. People need to know not only how to find information, but how to question where it came from, understand evidence, recognize conflicts of interest, and distinguish between genuine expertise and content that merely looks authoritative. And as has been mentioned, AI makes this challenge even more urgent. It can make health information consider considerably more convincing because it can generate fluent, personalized, and apparently authoritative answers almost instantly. I've heard from GPS who say that patients come in and said, I asked chat GPT first. This is what they told me and it's completely bonkers and unhelpful for both parties. So the systems can produce the inaccurate or fabricated information but presents it with confidence and apparently helpful systems can give people information is incomplete, misleading or just plainly wrong. Now Scotland's integrity strategy recognizes that responsibility cannot sit with one organization or one profession. the government, Parliament, NHS Scotland, public health Scotland, schools, universities, community organization, excuse me, charities, health care professionals, researchers, and technology companies all have different roles to play. I agree with the cabinet secretary that tackling misinformation should not mean shutting down debate. It should mean making it easier for people to distinguish evidence from speculation, expertise from unsupported claims, and reliable information from content designed primarily to attract attention. To just sum up, the Scottish Greens will be backing the government's motion and support Labor and the Conservative amendments on the dangers of medical misinformation. And I hope the rest of the chamber will consider the need for us to come together again and back this stance not just for health but there are misinformation that's going around the world in terms of welfare, disability, diet culture, rights of sex work, housing, immigration and so much more. Thank you. >> I call Adam Harley five minutes please. >> Thank you presiding officer. Thank you to the cabinet secretary for bringing today's debate and I'm pleased to follow Kayen Ken Ross O'Neal and an excellent speech took included many of the very excellent points that I'm also about to make. But what can you do? Um in many ways uh today's debate is fundamentally about trust. Uh who do we trust? What information do we trust? And what sources of information do we trust? Trust in our institutions is as we know and by many measures at a very low level. And when people are scared by a feeling that things are going backwards, that systems are failing, and that problems are being left unsolved, some people just switch off altogether. Others turn to sources of information and commentary that in the past would have held far less sway than they do today. And that dynamic is potentially most harmful when it comes to public health, where the wrong information at the wrong time can have devastating consequences. The internet and social media have opened up a world have opened up the world and given almost instantaneous access to information. But they've also opened the door to misinformation and to people who are willing to exploit uncertainty and fear that's been complicated further by the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence where now even a simple Google search can produce an AI generated answer as we've already heard and interest um and increasingly people are turning to AI for health advice rather than speaking to a doctor or another health care professional. Some uh some people are turning to popular YouTubers or social media personalities with enormous reach and influence. These people are often generating fear around particular health conditions or negative health outcomes and then they market products that claim that they will prevent that harm or cure that illness. We need to be clear and robust in calling out falsehoods when they appear, particularly when they have the potential to cause real harm or ultimately cost lives. But I think there's an important point about how we do that. If someone doesn't trust evidence-based health information, talking down to them or shaming them is unlikely to change their mind. We need to make sure that people feel able to ask questions and no question about your health should be off limits. People should be able to raise concerns, challenge information they've seen and get clear, accessible answers from a trusted source. And one way we could do that is by making better use of the NHS app. We should have a comprehensive NHS digital service, putting reliable information and access to services at people's fingertips from a source they know they can trust. We know that the Myare app was significantly delayed before its launch earlier this year and falls below what it could provide. The the wider roll out of features and enhancements that the government has outlined will will come soon as is needed um so that people can benefit from that combination of reliable evidence-based information from a trusted source alongside easier access to health care services. Abu >> Claire Hockey >> I thank the member for taking an intervention and I would refer him to the NHS inform website which contains a lot of the information that he's talking about there. >> Adam Harley, >> thank you for the intervention. Absolutely take that point and don't dispute it at all. I think there's something quite powerful about having an app at your fingertips. I know increasingly people have the the chat GPT app or claude and that's at their fingertips and they can immediately get feedback about their very particular tailored situation. So I think something that can reflect that coming from the NHS would be really powerful and would actually really help here. Um all of this matters particularly as we head head towards winter. uh doctors, nurses and other staff working in our emergency departments are already hugely up against it even before the full force of winter pressures have begun to hit. The roll out of flu vaccination is hugely important important in protecting vulnerable people but also in taking some of that pressure off the NHS. Yet distrust in vaccination which was prevalent before the pandemic as we've heard has increased since and made that job more difficult. So we have to keep making the case for vaccination with clear, accessible and evidence-based information. And that brings me to the responsibility of members of this parliament. We all have platforms. People listen to what we say. They share what we post. And increasingly we can reach thousands of people. Uh that gives us a responsibility to make sure that what we share is accurate, evidence-based, and comes from sources that we can trust and that other people can trust. Of course, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't question things and question the government and challenge decisions and raise concerns. We absolutely should. But when it comes to public health, we always need to be focused squarely on the public good, on positive outcomes for people, on clarity, on evidence. Because ultimately, the aim should be very simple. that everyone has access to reliable information and that services and the services that they need to prevent ill health to make informed decisions about their health and to give them the best possible chance of a positive outcome when they do need treatment. That is how we rebuild that trust and that's the responsibility that falls on all of us. Thank you. We now move to the open debate and I call clear hockey to be followed by Martin D. Five minutes please. >> Thank you presiding officer and I refer members to my register of interest. I'm an NHS greater Glasggo and Clyde Bank nurse. Um the concept of misinformation is not a new one and it's increasingly pertinent in today's world. In the health context, misinformation can take many forms. It can include false claims about the causes of ill health. misleading information about vaccines, inaccurate dietary advice, unproven treatments, or exaggerated claims about the benefits and risks of particular interventions. And the consequences in a health context can be particularly serious because people may use information found online to make decisions about their own health or the health of others. A recent study from King's College London showed that one in seven respondents use AI chat bots for health advice. A fifth of those said this technology did not encourage them to seek a professional opinion and a similar proportion decided against doing so because of something a chatbot told them. In January, an investigation by the Guardian newspaper showed Google AI overviews were not only placing inaccurate health information at the top of online searches, but potentially dangerous information, including on pancreatic cancer, liver function tests, and women's cancer tests. Last year, researchers from the University of Cork published a report regarding online searches for information about reduced fetal movement. They found that over half of the search results contained misinformation primarily from US commercial websites which contradicted clinical guidelines in the UK and Ireland and which could delay crucial medical assessments if followed. To give a final example, the UK used to be really good at beating measles. In 2017, the World Health Organization declared it been eliminated. Sadly, this is no longer the case. Last year there were almost a thousand confirmed cases in England, 28 in Scotland, mostly in young children. While in Scotland, second dose MMR vaccination rates hover around 91%. Across the UK as a whole, they sit around 85%. Global vaccination rates have fallen and many experts blame in part the spread of antivax conspiracy theories, including the ones which rehash and and absolutely discredited theories about links between the MMR vaccine and autism. All of these examples highlight how crucial it is to nurture trusted information touch points between the health care system and those who access it. Because if there's a vacuum, misinformation such as antivax med messaging can slide into this space and become the dominant narrative. None of us are immune to misinformation as we would perhaps like to think. Epsos polling for the Academy of Medical Sciences found a 41% uh point gap between how difficult people think it is for others to spot misleading health information versus how difficult they believe it is for themselves. And when people are vulnerable, anxious, overwhelmed, or searching for answers, it's understandable how misinformation can take root. The EPSOS research also shows us that those most likely to be affected are those who are already facing health inequalities, which can lead to delayed care and worsen outcomes. Tackling health misinformation must be part of our wider efforts to reduce health inequalities as well as helping people make informed decisions about their health. And this isn't about discouraging people from learning about their health. It's about empowering them and making trustworthy sources accessible and prominent. And that's why I welcome the publication of the Scottish health information integrity strategy last year. It was developed by multiple stakeholders and provides a framework for a coordinated evidence-based and ethical response to health misinformation. A key, excuse me, a key plank of the strategy is around building trust and resilience, strengthening health literacy and developing and supporting trusted and reliable networks and voices. So that those are the ones which people turn to when they need advice or support. Finally, presiding officer, I would particularly like to emphasize and welcome the part of today's motion that underlines the fact that members of this chamber have a responsibility to use and amplify factual, science-based, and trusted sources of information. The Scottish Council on Global Affairs made that point last month in a report about misinformation and disinformation more generally in Scotland as part of their state of the world series. Colleagues, a member of this chamber is on record as saying that they have persuaded many people not to have the CO 19 vaccine and would like them stopped. Quite frankly, that beggars belief. To be crystal clear, misinformation around vaccines is dangerous. Misinformation in on any health area is dangerous. members should know better than to contribute to false claims and put the safety of Scots at risk by pushing these claims onto the public. This SNP Scottish government will always stand up for sharing accurate and detailed information when it comes to all policy areas, not only health. We must have a collective agreement across this parliament to ensure that harms of health misinformation are not pushed forward from any party. I hope that we have can have a constructive debate this afternoon and that we can reach consensus on that important point. >> I call Martin D to be followed by Ahmed and H five minutes please Mr. D. >> Thank you presiding officer. M misinformation is nothing new. The Oxford English Dictionary records the use of the word as far back as the 16th century. And bad health advice is not new either. For generations, folks have been told to sweat out a fever, that going outside with wet hair will give them a cold, or to put butter on a burn. Presiding officer, a confession. I may have spread some misinformation myself over the years. I am still coming to terms with the reality that a hot toad will not actually cure a cold. The World Health Organization regards misinformation as false information shared without intent to mislead. Those sharing it may believe it to be true or informative and have no malicious intent. Whereas disinformation is false information or propaganda used deliberately to mislead. Over recent years, fake news has become increasingly familiar, while false information of all types travels even faster. The World Health Organization has a term for when that volume of information overwhelms reliable advice during a health emergency. It's an infomic. If we cast our minds back to the CO 19 pandemic, the most overt impact of misinformation was increased vaccine hesitancy. We also saw misinformation amplified globally from the highest levels. Then President Donald Trump repeatedly promoted hydroxy clo aquin um as a treatment for CO 19 before any reliable evidence could establish if it worked. The US Food and Drug Administration went on to warn of serious cardiac risks. And during the COVID pandemic, Scotland saw some dreadful disinformation. In September 2021, Scottish schools were deliberately targeted with misleading information about the vaccination program. Head teachers received hoax letters about vaccines complete with fake NHS logos and a supposed consent checklist to distribute to pupils. Schools also received antivaccination leaflets, petitions, and sudo legal cease and desist letters circulated directly to local authorities and secondary schools. Deliberate false information was dressed up to look authoritative using NHS identity in an environment where parents and young people should expect trustworthy health information. Misinformation can have consequences far beyond confusion or anxiety. One of the starkkest examples comes from pregnancy during COVID. Public Health Scotland found that between December 2020 and October 21, 104 COVID infections during pregnancy were associated with admission to critical care. Of those, 102, that's 98% occurred in women who were unvaccini unvaccinated when diagnosed. Vaccination rates among pregnant women were also substantially below those among women of the same age generally. The Scottish government's health information integrity strategy records how false claims about vaccine safety and fertility contributed to uncertainty and fear among pregnant women. Sadly, disinformation did not disappear with the pandemic. In evidence to this parliament's health and social care and sports committee last year, Dr. Pavan Shri Reddi of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland warned of widespread misinformation surrounding neurodedevelopmental conditions such as ADHD. Research examining popular ADHD content on Tik Tok found that more than half the videos studied were misleading with people increasingly turning to social media for health information before speaking to a health professional. This is very concerning. Tackling misinformation though cannot simply mean government or politicians telling people that they're wrong. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde provides a very interesting example. In 2024, it spoke directly to people living in prisons about vaccination. Those discussions identified misconceptions including that younger adults did not need vaccinations, information voids, and the need for simple messages. And their answer was to have people living in prison help make short films for their peers. While material was also developed for prison radio, delivering messages through people the audience could relate to. People are more likely to listen when information comes from sources they understand and trust. That is why the Scottish Health Information integrity strategies emphasis on building trust and resilience is so important. There is no single solution. We need good public information, health literacy, trusted community voices, and rapid responses when harmful falsehoods circulate. It is regrettable that this parliament lacks the power to tackle online harms and the algorithms that amplify health claims. To date, the UK government has failed to address these concerns adequately. But we do all have responsibility to ensure that what we say and share builds trust rather than undermines it. Politicians in this parliament must hold must be held to a higher standard than promoting false claims to the public. Thank you. >> I call Ahmmed to be followed by Heather Anderson. Four minutes please. Thank you presiding officer and thank you cabinet secretary for bringing this important debate. Medical misinformation is nothing new. If you walk up the road to the surgeons hall museum you can see that we have reached many of our medical milestone through trial and error often with fatal consequences. Human biology is complicated and our understanding is incomplete. Thankfully, medical practice has moved forward and our knowledge has improved over generations, reinforced by years of research. Delivering quality research can take years. Spreading falsehoods can take seconds. What is new is how fast lies can spread. We are increasingly taking advice on anything from our diet and weight loss to supplements and steroids from people we do not know. Motivated by business interests to satisfy sponsors or just a desire for attention. There is huge frustration from health professionals that they are not being listened to. Patients are increasingly dismissing advice provided by trained professionals in favor of fast pro promises and bad advice from influences and AI. According to a survey published in the time onethird of the young adult believed influence have more up to-ate health information than doctors. It also found that nearly half of Britain's are spending more than £120 a year on supplements they find on social media. The threats are not limited to reduced rates of vaccinations. We are seeing other threats like a sharp rise in black market weight loss drugs, increasing steroid sales to young men, harmful advice on how to give birth, and unuseful and unhealthy diets. So, I promise to support the cabinet secretary in her work to trust NHS staff and go to them for advice. Our GPS should have long-standing relationships with their patients and our digital system should be better connected. That is something that we pushed for the last election and it needs to improve. Support from UK research institutions like MRC and the NIHR fund quality research at our universities which informed our NH policy. They were crucial to delivering vaccine so quickly during the pandemic. Strong regulatory bodies means that treatments are safe and effective and our doctors receive clear rules against commercial influence. We can see the dangerous impact on public health when institutions like these are dismantled and dis defunded as they have been in the United States. Some in this chamber will be prefer not to talk about the wasted interest disrupting in our public health policy. They say that all health choices are simply about personal freedom. The reality is different. It is the protest that suffer the most from health misinformation and its consequences targeted by harmful contact from organizations holding their personal informations. In deprived areas, access to health services is under access and unhealthy product is easier. Vaccinations rates are lower and deaths rates are higher. We need to stop health misinformation if we are to reduce our health inequalities. While I welcome the publication of the report, the government can't just comment on current trend. It must act. I want us to continue to plug into a valuable UK-wide network of research instruction institution who provide advice and accountability. We must find way to support our health workforce to make sure patients listen to them >> and we must be tough on those who seek to exploit our health care for personal gain. Thank you presiding officer. >> Thank you. I call Heather Anderson to be followed by Alex K. Five minutes please. >> Thank you. Thank you presiding officer. I refer to my register of members interest and declare that I'm a serving counselor on Dundy City Council. Now, it's a bit extraordinary because I hadn't expected to hear Michael Gove's name mentioned three times today. So, I'm sorry I'm mentioning him again. Um, so, but some 10 years ago in the heat of the Brexit debate, Michael Gove famously stated that the people of this country have had enough of experts. Brexit fueled by myths and disinformation set the scene and we now live in a world where people can say anything based on any set of alternative facts they find useful or profitable. Post-truth is now the water we have to swim in. Where appeals to emotions or fear and rage can drown out reasoned arguments, facts or just straight scientific evidence. Navigating this blizzard of misinformation, disinformation, and downright falsehoods is the new normal. And it is more important than ever that we challenge it because, as we've heard this afternoon, it causes significant harm every day. Presiding officer, what is particularly gling is that Scotland is, has been, and I hope always will be a nation that produces worldleading experts, and none more so than in the world of medicine and health. Alexander Fleming gave the world penicellin. Joseph Listister gave us antiseptic surgery. James Simpson introduced chloroform anesthetics. The list goes on. And research in Scotland continues to be on the cutting edge of medical discovery. Just last month, a team of scientists in my city, Dundee, a team of scientists at University of Dundee's drug discovery unit discovered that an antimmalarial compound they had developed was being effective in malaria treatment and prevention. They are an early stage of trial um taking trial evidence. But if the evidence can prevail over the misinformation, this breakthrough could potentially help millions if not billions of people. Scotland should be proud of its experts and its expertise. But presiding officer, I wanted to highlight three diseases which within my lifetime could move from the incurable C category to the eradicated category. Cervical cancer, HIV and hepatitis C. Each journey to eradication involves overcoming miss and disinformation and building trust. Firstly, cervical cancer. In my lifetime, this used to be one of the leading causes of cancer deaths for women. Now we have the HPV vaccination program which is administered in Scotland to boys and girls in S1 and can be offered up to the age of 25. The HPV vaccination protects both boys and girls from HPV related cancers, cervical cancer, head and throat cancers, genital cancers. It also prevents boys passing on the virus to their partners. We now know that there have been no cases of cervical cancer caused by the HP virus in fully vaccinated young women since 2008 when the vaccination program was introduced. We've effectively eliminated cervical cancer amongst the girls who were immunized. That was unthinkable 20 years ago. But whilst the coverage of the vaccination program in Scotland is the highest in the UK, we don't of 100% and we've talked about that this afternoon. There there has been a decline in over over recent years, particularly in young people from more disadvantaged groups. Whilst 90% of the girls in the most affluent areas take the vaccine, only 75% of the girls in the most deprived areas do. Cervical cancer killing any young women in Scotland is unacceptable. that's completely unacceptable is more likely to kill young women from more deprived areas. We have to work on the mess and disinformation that is being spread here. Secondly, I just wanted to refer to AIDS and HIV. It continues to kill people around the world often due to gross disinformation. But in January 2020, the Minister for Public Health was my mighty predecessor, Joe Fitzpatrick. And Joe announced that the target of 2030 would be the for the elimination of HIV transmissions. Thank you, Joe. And this is being made possible by PREP. PrEP reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 99% and it blocks the HIV life cycle, but you have to take the medication for it to work. Thankfully, since 2017, nearly 14,000 people have, thanks to Joe. We couldn't have imagined eradication was possible in the 80s, but it is. And Scotland could be the first country in the world to eliminate HIV transmission. And lastly, presiding officer, I wanted to speak about hepatitis C, an infection shrouded in misinformation. In 2020, NHS T-side and Hillrestress Harm Reduction Service were able to achieve the world's first micro elimination of hepatitis C in T-side. Hillrest Futures told me how what how much work that took. They had to challenge outdated information, explain how modern direct acting antiviral treatments worked more effectively and they didn't have the dire side effects of previous treatments. It was only through building real trust over time that people could be supported to make informed decisions and engage with the treatment and they did. >> Member must come to a conclusion. >> So I am going I am concluding Scotland hopes to eliminate heepsi as a major public health concern over the next couple of years and let's keep up the good work and make sure we do that. Michael Gove was sorry about mentioning him again but Michael Gove was wrong about a lot of things but he was particularly wrong on this. The people of this country, Scotland, haven't had enough of experts. In fact, it's more important than ever than we listen to some. Don't let information, don't let misinformation and disinformation get in the way and let's hit the targets. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. I call Alex K to be followed by Patricia Gibson. Five minutes, please, Mr. K. >> Thank you, presiding officer. I'm grateful to the cabinet secretary for bringing this debate to the chamber. Health misinformation has always been a huge challenge, but more so now than ever with the ability for instant communication that comes with social media and now even more dangerously the power that comes with generative AI. With AI, the dangerous potential for false or worse misleading information to be proliferated at an uncontrollable rate. The need to take action grows more urgent every day. I think it's incredibly important to note that the use of automation and artificial intelligence is like social media itself, not necessarily an inherent social harm. It is a tool and like all tools, it is how they are used that determines the impact on society. AI when used safely to automate frustrating busy work in our public services and allowing those to work in and support the public sector to focus on what they do best, helping the people who live and work here in Scotland can have a hugely beneficial impact in our society. It can be used to help analyze data with human oversight to identify important trends in our country and help identify actions we can take to better support people. Specific forms of artificial intelligence has been used to help push the frontiers of medical science and attempts to discover new treatments. That's when the tools used for good when used for the worst. We've seen automation of fake social media accounts spreading disinformation and misinformation across the internet and has been mentioned in previous speeches. We've seen and we've heard stories told in this chamber about the devastating use of image generation AI to misrepresent and degrade individuals. It's become increasingly difficult, though still possible at this point, to identify artificially generated media. I expect I may not be the only person in this chamber who has had to explain to a family member or close friend that the most recent video of a dog saving a baby from a waterfall is very sadly not real. As the cabinet secretary has mentioned, the window though in which we can relatively easily identify falsified content is closing much faster than everybody had hoped. The news this weekend that the three largest labs have AI labs have come together to call for a slowdown in AI development to allow increased regulation should be one that concerns us all. It's rare that an industry calls for increased regulation of itself. Just last week, three researchers warned that artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within a decade with one of the researchers resigning from his role in protest. He was backed by one of his former colleagues, Evan Hubinger, publicly. Evan is the lead in the company's alignment division, which basically means that that that's a division that's focused on ensuring the AI models do what we tell them to do. And he put the chance at AI killing all the humans at 10%. I don't know about you, but those don't sound like great odds. And I know we have an absolutely fantastic cabinet secretary for health. I don't expect you to personally save us from AI, but I think it's vitally important that you've highlighted the need for further regulation of AI in the motion as the Minister for Public Finance did yesterday when we paused consideration of hyperscaler data centers in Scotland. And I'm glad the SMP is leading the way in Scotland on calls for regulation of AI companies. When it comes to misinformation and disinformation, we have an important role as members of the Scottish Parliament to ensure we educate ourselves in the evidence so that when we are confronted with misinformation or disinformation, we can challenge it strongly. As the cabinet secretary's resolution eloquently puts it, a responsibility to ensure that they use factual, science-based, and trusted sources of health information from the NHS, public bodies, and academia to help protect public health. Health mis misinformation is a deeply dangerous issue that can have serious consequences for individuals but also for society as a whole. To make it clear I echo the comments of others in the debate particularly Kay Ross um and Adam Harley that when it comes to our health it's essential that we rely on trustworthy information medical professionals and wellsported academic evidence. Health decisions should never be based on rumors, social media posts or information from unreliable sources. If we have concerns about our health, the people best placed to discuss them with are qualified medical professionals who can provide accurate advice and guidance based on the most up-to-date scientific evidence. As health misinformation continues to spread, it does not just impact individuals. It can undermine public trust and contribute to poorer public health more generally. We've seen this happen in the past, particularly with misinformation surrounding vaccines and different health conditions. That's why it's so important that we question information we see. We check where it comes from and make sure that we believe about what we believe about health is supported by reliable evidence. Ultimately, tackling health misinformation is not just about correcting false information. It is about protecting people, building trust in our health care, and creating a healthier and better informed society. I look forward to supporting the cabinet secretary's motion and working with colleagues across the chamber from different parties to help tackle misinformation and disinformation to protect our communities. Thank you. I call Patricia Gibson five minutes please. >> Thank you presiding officer. The risk of global spread the risk of global spread of misinformation relating to public health particularly via social media is of concern to us all and a huge challenge of our times. Indeed, experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are worried about a surge of harmful health information on areas such as vaccines, reproductive health, disease outbreaks, and climate and health. This coincides with people increasingly turning to influ influencers, unverified wellness apps, and AI chat bots for health advice that can be misleading, inaccurate, or even dangerous. As Clare Hawk pointed out, health mis mis misinformation isn't new, but the scale, the speed, and the impact we are seeing today is unlike anything in modern history. In 2025, the American Psychological Association released a consensus statement underscoring health misinformation as one of the most urgent threats to public health. The World Health Organization has called this an infomic, as Martin Day pointed out, an overabundance of information, both accurate and not, that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy guidance when they need it most. The consequences go well beyond online confusion. It leads to an erosion of trust in clinicians, science, and health care systems. It leads to delaying or avoiding care, including the refusal of preventative services. It leads to worsening dis disease severity and outcomes and it leads to an increased strain on public health infrastructure. Clinicians and health leaders often encounter patients whose health benefits or decisions have been shaped by misinformation long before they have contact with the patient. Misinformation and conspiracy theories persuade some people to avoid taking their children for important childhood vaccinations or taking unproven treatments. The EI chat box that hallucinate clinical details not only puts individuals lives at risk but will lead to a sicker, less productive population. The reemergence of infectious diseases, once considered defeated or tightly controlled, is one of the most pressing public health crises of the 20th and 21st centuries. Quite simply, medical misinformation costs lives. The scientific community is quite clear. This must be tackled and confronted and fought in a robust way. But this is not easy when you have a US president who warned that pregnant women should stop taking paracetamol or risk giving their children autism. A claim which has no basis in scientific fact. Indeed, the White House health secretary, Robert Kennedy, claims some people have a harder time giving up anti-depressants than they do heroin. And of course, vaccines have been a common target for the current US president falsely correlating vaccines with autism and his health secretary challenging the safety of both the COVID 19 vaccine and the DTP diptheria vaccine. This from the most powerful man in the world is not easy to counter and these mad cap and dangerous claims are finding traction around the world and sadly even in this chamber. And you wouldn't believe um deputy presiding officer the nonsense that we had to listen to in Westminster, but at least the Tories had the good common sense to ex suspend a former MP who compared the COVID vaccine to the Holocaust, which is both irresponsible and offensive in more ways than I have time to explain um to the chamber. And technology is also moving really fast, as are cynical ways to mislead and exploit people using that technology. As we've heard, gone of the days, sadly, when patients who are worried about particular symptoms would seek the advice of their GP or qualified medical professional. Increasingly, people are prey to health misinformers and platforms with their own agenda, often commercial or political via AI and social media. Without any medical training or oversight, they advise people on vaccinations. Whether this is about COVID vaccines or vaccinations to keep babies and young people safe from a whole range of diseases such as polio, hooping cough, menitis, sepsis, measles, reubella, and so on. And this can have very serious and deadly consequences. There is this is a very serious public health emergency which must be confronted. The CO 19 pandemic taught us something very important. It taught us that falsehood spread as fast as any virus can. We now have probably some people believe we have a a whole generation, some would say a lost generation who simply don't know where to turn for trustworthy advice. which is why the only answer to this is providing people with highquality health information which answers their questions and addresses their concerns. And I'm I'm very interested in the approach from countries such as Finland, which is preparing for the next infomic with a national media literacy program that involves teaching children and adults how to identify and resist misinformation. >> Must conclude, >> right? So we need a coordinated approach to monitoring dangerous health misinformation circulating across the UK and further a field. One of the aims of the proposed new network would be to monitor for health information misinformation attacks on key topics and collaborate on social media and online interventions that could counter them because currently there is no western or global coordinated approach. So we appear to be losing the argument. Scotland needs to act but she can't act alone. >> Sorry. Thank you to closing speeches and I call Adam Harley three minutes please. >> Thank you presiding officer. This is my first attempt to sum up a debate without having already written a speech. So I'll do my best. Bear with me. Um thank you um again to the government for bringing this debate. I think on the whole there's been a lot of consensus in the debate um which I've really welcomed. the cabinet secretary uh spoke of in the unintentional sharing of false information that can happen. I think that's a really good point. Um and it speaks to the need for us all to educate ourselves about what constitutes um a bit of information, health information that we might find online that one that we can trust that we know has come from a trusted source and that's um as much for MSPs and people in this chamber as it is for the general public. Um she made one point about uh the need for effective collaboration as part of the government's new strategy. Um I' I'd say I think that needs to be collaboration also with the UK government especially when it comes to to the digital element of some of these harms where there's a real need to work collaboratively there. Um Jackie Bailey mentioned MMR and how the case um in terms of the misinformation there started a lot of the vaccine mistrust that we've seen since and has grown arms and legs. Um, I also very much agree with the point she made um around the need for flexibility when it comes to receiving vaccines and that's especially in rural areas. Kaylee Ken Ross O'Neal as I already said made some excellent points and really stark examples of harm. Um and I think a really important point she made is the need for international um and c a crossber approach to a lot of this and that that's in terms of um whether it's sharing vaccines and with other countries who need them um and also very much so in terms of that online space as well. Martin Dave made good points about again about the unintentional sharing of falsehoods and I also can't quite come to terms with the fact that a hot toddy apparently doesn't cure a cold. Um, Miles Briggs uh spoke about being alarmed about uh some of the the um health advice he'd seen online just from a quick Google search. I have to say I do think some of that we can put at the feet sometimes of some lazy journalists who who quite like to share the sort of latest bit of health information where there's maybe a bit of um collaboration over causation. So I think that's something as well that needs to be looked at um to get a a quick click on an and a social an article that then will be shared on social media. Um he also made a really important point about men's health and it's one that I agree with and um the Liberal Democrats are minded to support his amendment today and the Labor amendment and the and the government motion. Thank you. >> Thank you. I call Miles Spect four minutes please. Thank you, an officer. Um, one of the negative side effects of being a health spokesperson, um, which I've found anyway in the time I've served in parliament is it has turned me into hypochondriac. And I don't know if both the cabinet secretary and the minister and others who are health spokespersons in this parliament have also found the fame same but I make the point not inest because there is a serious point here because people across our country often when they do feel unwell will look to their phones and look to the internet for the first bit of information they seek and as Kaylee Kros O'Neal mentioned that then results in them if they can build up the confidence to go and see their GP saying that they've googled it and this is their problem and then actually walking that back you'll find that there isn't often but this is where people will access information I think we need to be wise to where people do now seek their health and public health information and that's why um Adam Harley's point and return the compliments I think was really important because when we are talking about people not trusting um our health information the last thing we can do is talk down to them to say that they're stupid or that they need to just change their mind we need to actually give them the facts. Now, I very much welcome a number of briefings which we had ahead of today's debate, but I thought chest heart and stroke Scotland really provided a a really useful piece of information in in the sense of pointing out that PIFF tick um the patient information forum trusted information center is where we crater sorry is where we should be looking towards that UKwide recognized quality standard of health information. And for many people, I actually hadn't really heard of it until this debate either. um we need to make sure that that's promoted more widely as well. Now Martin Day I think made um some really important part points in his contribution perhaps also has highlighted that it's not going to be appointed the parliament's medical adviser anytime soon but I think summed up the the key point that we've all wanted to get across today that we need to look towards um how we transform our health service but actually that is going to be with technology at its heart and the NHS app and there are criticisms about where that has gone in Scotland compared to the information which is readily available in England at this moment in time. But that will be a great opportunity for many people to manage their health, manage conditions uh which we all want to see that personbased self-management in the future. But for so many people that will be online where they seek information uh not a medical professional and we need to make sure that that is right. Heather Anderson made a number of really important points as well in the time I've got left. Um, I'd suggest maybe she does not watch the new reality TV show show War Games and she might be for the former first minister, but she might not like the other contestants she'll find on that. But a serious point was in relation to HEPS because the elimination program which Scotland has been world leading on and T-side actually particularly has made such welcome progress. We are falling backwards and we need to recognize that and some of the hard work which will it will take to catch up with that and we will need to do urgently because that seek and treat at target has not been met and in many health boards it has not been undertaken especially with difficult populations the prison population being one of them. So I I hope the government will be in the recent in coming months bringing forward a statement to parliament on on where that will be addressed. And just to conclude, deputy presiding officer, often addressing the online information will not be solved uh by politicians. Um but what we can do is look towards how we can develop a new national approach to health literacy so that people our fellow citizens can find understand and use public health information to make the informed decisions we all need to take about our health and support others who we might be supporting. Um and I move the amendment in my name. Thank you >> Jillian Mai. Six minutes please. >> Thanks presiding officer. As we've heard from around the chamber this afternoon, access to good and reliable healthcare advice is essential, but that there are far too many places where misinformation exists. Martin Day's confession on spreading misinformation inadvertently was amusing, but I think does demonstrate how harmless people think sharing information is. But I would like him to share his sources on the hot toddy comment. The cabinet secretary also mentioned in her opening that some people do share misinformation unknowingly and out of concern for others. And I was pleased that the cabinet secretary mentioned meeting people where they are to give them information. Health information can often be technical and jargon heavy in its nature and making it plain and easy to digest is essential because that's what AI is doing and what we're battling against. Arshadamemed mentioned needing to support GPS and other clinicians in dealing with that misinformation that they're being brought when people ask chat GPT about their symptoms and that's an essential part in all of this. My colleague Kayleie Ken Ross O'Neal mentioned about how education, health, and other parts of government policy overlap to ensure that we upskill people to interrogate information essential in preventing people from passing on information that we they may not know is untrue. It would be good to know how this strategy is being shared across other parts of government to make sure that they all play their part in tackling health misinformation and also upskilling particularly children and young people to make sure they can interrogate the information that's in front of them. Even though some people do share that misinformation unknowingly, we do have to be aware that some do not have such good intentions. Last session, this parliament resoundingly passed the abortion services safe access zone Scotland act designed to make sure that women can access abortion care safely and with dignity. Yet, we had the vice president of the United States on the stage at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025 saying things that were categorically untrue about information the Scottish government have sh had shared and things about my members bill. There are global players that are very willing to undermine the confidence that we are trying to provide the public with and wider abortion care is absolutely on the front line of this. Safe access zones were the first small step in making abortion care easier to access and less traumatic. It faced huge opposition and misinformation. And it took a full chamber effort to challenge that. And I'm hugely grateful to colleagues who played their part to actually make progress on abortion care and on the two doctor rule as an example. We're going to face that misinformation and that challenge again. And it will take all of those who are willing in this chamber to continue to make that progress. Social media is a fantastic tool, but we've heard repeatedly over several years the issue with information on these platforms. The speed that this information can be shared versus how quickly government can respond I think is a difficulty that we're yet to find a neat solution to. Jackie Bailey mentioned the misinformation around the MMR vaccination and that shows that this isn't a new problem. Misinformation on vaccine goes back decades and the confidence in these lifesaving health care interventions is hard gained and easily undermined. Making vaccines a part of everyone's routine health care is essential. So work we do has to be v f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f focused I think on parent confidence to get their children vaccinated and get that habit in there early. There's already fantastic work being done to encourage parents to antiatal appointments, midwife visits, and through health visitors. Everyone I came in contact with when I had my baby last year was excellent at answering questions with empathy and dispelling myths when they were raised. Creating those spaces to ask those questions without feeling silly, especially for first-time parents, is essential if we're going to have a well-informed population. This is so easily undermined, though, as I've said, and particularly by some of the trends we're seeing in America. So-called measles parties in the US intentionally spread the disease in the hopes of acquiring immunity by deliberately making children unwell, completely ignoring the potential complications for those kids. This seems both extreme and ridiculous, but their popularity has risen in the last decade or so with research from Columbia University Colombia University easy to say at this point on a Thursday partially crediting these parties with the measles outbreak in New York in 2019 saying that it's likely that through increased contact between children in the 1 to4 age category likely through measles parties. We need to make sure that we do not rest and believe that it isn't possible that that trend comes here and make sure parents know that the vaccinations are the best way to acquire that immunity. It's not all bleak though. We have overcome misinformation before. I was once groaned at in this chamber for saying that I was too young to remember the misinformation of the 1980s around HIV. Jackie Bailey was there and one of the ones that groaned >> and she's doing it again. Misinformation that we've fought and the battles we've won do not live on forever in the minds of those that are taking policies forward and we need to make sure that we continue to share what we've already done and that that informs what comes next. And can I follow on from Heather Anderson on committing my party to do everything we can to work towards that HIV elimination target. This entire chamber has the duty to tackle health misinformation and I believe that there is a coalition of the sensible across the chamber that's willing to do that. >> Thank you. I call Joe Long uh five minutes please. >> Thank you presiding officer. I'm grateful to the Scottish government for bringing this important topic for debate in the chamber this afternoon. and we will be supporting the motion and indeed the conservative amendment and I welcome the health information integrity strategy. It's going to be an important piece of work. It is vital that all our health and care policy is built on a basis of robust evidence and comes from a place of compassion and a desire to understand the experience of those needing support. These must be the qualities that guide day-to-day practice in services and our political rhetoric and debate must likewise combine these qualities of sound evidence on the one hand and compassion and empathy on the other. Both are needed if we're to retain the trust and confidence of those we serve and to tackle misinformation. Health mis misinformation is something I experienced in a number of ways in my previous career in autism services and I refer to my register of interest there. I was working in frontline autism support roles when the famous Wakefield study wrongly linked autism to the measles ms and rebella vaccine. Several people have alluded to it this afternoon. a study based on flawed methods, problematic evidence that reached unound conclusions, subsequently retracted by many of the co-authors. Not only was that one study problematic, but we also have sound evidence to refute the claim from population level studies, such as the Yokohama study in Japan, where the MMR vaccine was withdrawn, but prevalence rates continue to rise in exactly the same trajectory as before. Yet the flawed study uh of Wakefield sewed the seeds of a long decline in vaccine uptake and I would say had two disastrous outcomes. Firstly, a rise in measles outbreaks. We've heard about that today from Jillian Mai and from Cla Hy. Um a life-threatening disease for infants that had been all but eradicated and can cause very serious long-term effects for people who catch it in childhood. Secondly, a stigmatizing narrative about autistic people are somehow less than autistic children is undesirable, and I associate myself with Kaylee Wikin Ross O'Neal's comments in that regard. And that trend of misinformation, I'm afraid, has continued in the long term. Over 20 years after that first study, I found myself on the radio debunking the falsehood from the US president that paracetamol taken in pregnancy caused autism. Once again, an unfounded conclusion. Once again, an assertion that already been proven not to be the case in European studies. a claim based on the misapprehension that autism is a homogeneous phenomena with a single cause and once again a stigmatizing narrative about autistic people. And since that time, I've heard of US-based scholars whose scientific research has had funding cut sometimes in the middle of projects because it didn't fit the political narrative. We saw unfounded assertions about vaccines flourish during the COVID pandemic that was claiming lives at an alarming rate. So the stakes are high. We must never allow that Trumpian politics to take hold in our country. a politics that sews misinformation and stigmatizes disability. And again, I I welcome Patricia Gibson's comments about about the US president's role in that. We would do well to follow that maxim that we must first do no harm. So, I've been heartened to hear contributions of colleagues across much of the chamber this afternoon that align with that thought and are quite aligned. Uh several of us have spoken about autism, vaccines, and measles. I was I was uh heartened to hear Heather Anderson's contributions also on HIV, HPV and hepatitis C really important contribution to the debate and in Mars's contribution hearing that actually we need a gendered and a cultural lens sometimes to tackle health information and misinformation and that will be an important part uh of the um information integrity stretch I think being sensitive to those different needs of different demographics and from Adam Harley that of course it's not just the information we put out there but where it sits that's really really important for it to tackle misinformation. Um it is right, you know, a as was raised uh from the opposite side of the chamber that we understand and have rigorous evidence about the effects of vaccines when they're undertaken. But it does seem odd that a party putting forward a motion about one-sided evidence mentioned that but didn't mention the tens of thousands of people across these islands that lost their lives during the co pandemic or the thousands of life that have been saved by those vaccines. Uh and I have to say as someone who had a very early uh co infection with quite long-lasting effects as an asthmatic um I couldn't roll my sleeve up quick enough to have that vaccine based on sound information. So information there are many of us who are part of our national conversation have responsibility to ensure that sound information gets to those making decisions about their health and that misinformation is called out and rebuked. Our media have a responsibility to report health news proportionately and with care valuing expertise and scientific consensus over sensationism and click rates. Social media platforms have a significant responsibility to stop the spread of misinformation. A theme and that's a theme that's likely to run across much of the work of our parliament. Whether it's about health, information, misogyny, the well-being of our young people, those tech giants must be properly regulated. We need to work with the UK government to achieve that. And we as politicians have to hold ourselves to high standards in the discourse we embrace. Robust evidence as a basis for public policy, compassion and care in the words we use and the stories we tell about what it is we're trying to achieve for those we serve. Sorry, I call Victor Curry. Seven minutes, please. >> Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm an employee of the NHS. And thank you to the cabinet secretary for bringing this debate and the fellow members for their submissions today. Now, let my party be absolutely killer from the outset. The proliferation of deliberately deceptive or harmful medical advice is a serious issue. When individuals are defrauded or physically harmed by predatory actors advocating fake cures, the law should step in just as it does with any other form of fraud or malpractice, and any attempts to empower, control, or curate information must be judiciously applied. However, the wording of this motion reveals a deeply concerning legislative potential and trend in modern governance. the unintentional establishment of a de facto monopoly on truth, the demonization of legitimate skepticism, and political leaders absolving themselves of their primary democratic responsibilities. Let us be clear, the public trust is not something government is entitled to. It is something government must earn. Now, this motion calls upon us to rely solely on trusted sources from public bodies and further defines these under the three pillars detailed by the cabinet secretary. But history teaches us that science does not advance through blind compliance. It advances through rigorous skepticism. When we label any deviation from the official narrative as misinformation, we strangle the very engine of scientific progress. True science requires the unbiased presentation of all facts, not just the convenient ones. Let us look at the official data. According to the Scottish government's own public health Scotland data, during the pandemic, the landscape of risk was highly stratified. For example, healthy children face an incredibly low statistical risk from acute respiratory viruses. Yet, official public health messaging pushed an aggressive one-sizefits-all counter measure strategy, and children are still scheduled for COVID vaccination vaccines today, regardless of any consideration of any underlying conditions. When independent clinicians raised early concerns regarding specific documented risks such as the elevated incidence of myocarditis in young males following mRNA therapeutics, a risk later formally acknowledged by both the medical and healthcare products regulatory agency and the joint committee on vaccination and immunization. They were initially branded by mainstream political institutions as purveyors of unnecessary concern and unhelpful narratives. Further, in February 2022, Public Health Scotland stopped publishing weekly hospitalization and death data by vaccination status, citing the misrepresentation of raw statistics by antivaccine groups. Now, when the state uses its platform to suppress nuance, it is not protecting public health. It is undermining it. Sometimes the most dangerous misinformation downstream is often the oversimplified absolute proclaimed by government authority. Now when I have a patient in front of me when recommending any intervention I tell them five things. What is the intervention? What is the rationale and how it will remedy the condition? What are the complications? What are the alternatives? And what happens if we do nothing? And I believe the rise of what this motion calls vaccine misinformation is actually a direct symptom of the public feeling they were denied this balanced informed view in favor of emotional um forcing due during the roll out of various public health programs. The traditional cautious definitions of clinical efficacy were blurred. For instance, looking at the data regarding vaccine uptake and transmission rates, public health authorities initially implied that these interventions would completely halt transmission. A claim that real world epidemiological data quickly disproved and when the state implements measures like vaccine passports or workplace mandates. Yes, a good way. >> Cabinet Secretary, I appreciate the opportunity. Um, I hope that I demonstrated in the tone or tenor of in which I led this debate that it is important that we tackle misinformation in a manner that does not infringe on freedom of expression or indeed scientific debate. But I wonder if the member and his party would agree that there are indeed bad faith actors who have weaponized misinformation or disinformation as attacks on freedom of expression and that there are bad faith actors who have also deliberately avoided any recognition of nuance and reduce the debate to the lowest common denominator. Victor Caddy >> uh in answer to the cabinet secretary I would agree with that completely. The point I hope I'm trying to make and articulate properly is that the drafting of the motion and the um past record of uh the government attempting to manage that debate has led to these nuance legitimate skepticism being steamrolled over and not and not allowed into the the debate properly in order to formulate a final policy that's balanced. So if we want to improve health outcomes, we must treat the Scottish public like adults. Enforced coercion destroys trust. You can't have trust where you've got no choice. Must provide the transparent unvarnished statistical realities including the absolute risk reduction rates and trust individual citizens to make the right decision for their own bodies. So I do welcome the attempts um mentioned in the uh motion but I don't accept um any attempts to limit what can be said. Finally presiding officer I must address the dangerous habit of this government to contract out political responsibility to unelected experts and institutions. Expert panels, advisory committees and academic bodies are vital. They provide data, but they do not possess elected authority, and they must never be used as procedural shields for political leaders. We saw this repeatedly throughout the pandemic and its aftermath. Decisions to close schools, lockdown communities, and disrupt cancer screenings, uh, which led to a measurable tragic rise in non-COVID excess deaths and latestage diagnoses were frequently defended by ministers claiming they were simply following the science. Science does not make policies. Ministers make policies. Science can tell you a virus spreads. It cannot weigh the societal cost of a child missing year of education or the economic ruin of small businesses or the mental health crisis currently gripping our youth. When political leaders contract out their judgment, a closed circle of approved experts, there's a danger that an echo chamber will be created and an absolution of them themselves of a duty to balance competing harms. Reform UK stands for a return to democratic accountability. We do not need a parliament that acts as a rubber stamp for technocratic consensus. We need a parliament that interrogates that consensus. In conclusion, presiding officer, this motion asks us to collaborate to tackle online misinformation by potentially narrowing the scope of acceptable debate. The antidote to bad information is not censorship. It is more transparency. If the Scottish government expects the public to adhere to high standards of truth, it must lead by example with its own decision making. Health information is not a selective category. It covers everything that impacts patients well-being. When statements were made assuring the public that the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital was safe at a time when specific words were known and later proven not to be, that did not just constitute a failure of communication. It constituted misinformation. Presiding officer, we cannot defeat misinformation out there if we permit it within our own institutions. You wind up, please. >> And that concludes my submission. Thank you very much. >> Perfect timing. Thank you, Minister Allison Thulis. 10 minutes, please. >> Thank you very much, presiding officer. I welcome the opportunity to close this debate on behalf of the Scottish government and I thank the vast majority of members who engaged in this debate in good faith and brought such important contributions to have I think 16 speakers across the debate uh is very uh significant as well. Uh I didn't quite expect the the range of misinformation uh examples that we would have today from fitness influencers uh diet culture uh vaccines uh wellness and hot toddies but we've certainly covered a wide variety of the ways uh the types of misinformation and indeed how those are spread and I think Patricia Gibson reflected in the the scale the speed and the impact of that spread of misinformation uh and we should be mindful of that. In opening debate, the cabinet secretary set out the case for action and the reasons why the Scottish health information integrity strategy matters. The strategy has been developed in response to the changes that are affecting health systems around the world and which increasingly influence how people access information and make decisions about how they engage uh with their health and public services. The the strategy was published in October 2025 and co-developed with the World Health Organization. And it sets out the framework for safe, coherent, evidence-based, and ethical approaches to addressing false and misleading health information. It sets out a national approach to ensure that the general public have ready access to accurate information to help them make the right decisions about their own health and well-being. It will help Scotland's health system adapt to the unprecedented volume of online health information and respond effectively when widespread misinformation poses a real risk to public health. It's built on the latest research and will evolve as evidence changes, helping to ensure that people have access to reliable health information to make the best choices for their own well-being. It the strategy is also a practical guide and designed very much with implementation in mind. There are 22 recommendations and actions which are being implemented with partners and it is preventing harm from that poor quality health information uh which is after all a global challenge and we are very much at the forefront of actions on this. It's a strategy uh that we regard as worldleading and of which we can be incredibly proud as a country. I would also take this opportunity particularly to encourage uh students to get their their MENB B vaccine and to tell all of those who are eligible for a flu vaccine to take that up because that not only will help your own health but it will take pressure off our NHS as we head into the winter. Uh presiding officer, it is clear that vaccines save lives. In 2024, the World Health Organization found that immunization has saved approximately 154 million lives over the past 50 years. That's the equivalent of six lives every minute of each of those 50 years. 101 million of those were the lives of infants. Diseases once commonplace like smallox and polio, we can now consider practically eradicated. And we have made so much progress on this area. >> Ellen McDade, >> thank you. Do you accept that the COVID vaccine has had a huge number about 20 times the number of referrals back about serious adverse effects compared to all the other vaccines? All vaccines are not the same. >> Minister, >> we all have a responsibility in this place as elected members not to undermine vaccinations. Vaccinations save lives and we have a responsibility to our constituents and to the wider world to make sure that that is importantly uh recognized. And in thinking h about the impact of where we've come on this, Heather Anderson reflected very um movingly on the range of different vaccines that have come over time. uh the work that Dundee is doing to uh eliminate malaria. Uh the work in in cervical cancer and the particularly stark statistic that there have been no cancer cases of cancer in vaccinated young women since 2008. That is remarkable and again we should be very very proud of the progress that has been done on there. She also uh paid tribute to Joseph Fitzpatrick and I would agree with her on that on the work to bring in prep which has been administered to 14,000 people and is helping to prevent people uh from exposure to HIV and she also mentioned the important work done in Hellcrest Futures about the micro elimination of hepatitis C which again is an ongoing challenge and I had the the privilege of attending the uh exhibition for the UK AIDS memorial quilt at the tramway in Glasgow uh over the weekend and the the stigma and the pain of a virus spreading to which there was no cure was wrought through the quilts that were displayed h in the tramway and I would recommend that everybody takes the opportunity to go and see that before the 27th of September because it remembers the lives that were lost at a time of great stigma and great pain uh and we've made huge progress over that period but it is still a virus that affects too many people and I'd like to also take the opportunity to thank Ali Vanillo who recently passed away for starting that project and for making a huge difference in commemorating those who lost their lives. As many members reflected, people now encounter health information in places that really were not designed uh to be sharing that information. Whether that's online networks, the digital communities uh and through uh means such as chat gpt as as members mentioned these apps giving information which is not reliable is not cannot be trusted uh is something we should all be quite worried about and I would encourage people to seek out uh those important sources of information from their own practitioners um but also from NHS inform which is a reliable source of information that we as elected members should be sharing with all of our constituents to make sure that they get the information that they need because trust in health professionals remains high. People have talked in this debate about trust. That's a key aspect of this strategy and I would encourage everyone to seek that trust and information from from GPS and we have the walk-in clinics where people can get that advice and I understand um in Shetland for example Milesburg's mentioned men getting access to that information. I understand in the walk-in in Shhatland uh that it's men dropping their kids off to sports activities are going in to seek advice uh from that walk-in GP. Now that's really important. They might not have got that otherwise and it really shows the value of these services where underserved communities uh or people who might not even consider to be underserved can get that kind of advice. Others mentioned mentioned young adults getting information. We've talked about the inequalities issues as well and making sure that people get access to that information is important but there's a range of advice out there too. There's pharmacists, there's optometrists, there's dentists, there's the allied health professionals, there all the aiologists. whatever health query you have, you can be assured that in Scotland that there will be people out there that can help you and that you can trust uh to get that information to you. And that false and misleading information, health information that we're talking about today undermines that trust. It can weaken confidence in health care professionals and institutions. It can discourage people from seeking medical advice. It can contribute to delays in diagnosis and treatment. It can affect confidence in public health interventions. In some circumstances, it can deepen existing inequalities by creating additional barriers for communities that already experience uh poorer health outcomes. It can cause real harm. And that relationship between trust and information is one of the most important themes running through the strategy. And people often seek that health information because they're worried, they're uncertain, they're not sure what is affecting them, and they look for that advice um for themselves or somebody close to them. Some people share information because they think they're being helpful. And the strategy recognizes the reality of this and uh the the motivations that people might have for sharing that information. And I think as as Adam Harley and others uh reflected, we need to meet people where they are. We shouldn't be shaming them. We shouldn't be making them feel uncomfortable. We should be answering their questions as best we can and directing them to the appropriate sources of information so that they can uh feel confident in getting that information. The strategy also recognizes the importance of trusted voices within our communities. And people don't only receive information from government, from public health agencies, or those health care organizations. Family members, friends, community leaders, charities, educators, local organizations, they all play an important role in shaping our understanding and influencing those decisions. And those trusted relationships within communities are a real asset to us in Scotland. And again, we should be making the most of those uh as well. And I would like at this point to recognize Margaret Lance uh an HIV campaigner who passed away in 2025 and was such an important voice uh in the African Scots community. Um she worked for Waverly Care and did incredible work to make sure that those communities were not missed from public health messaging and was a trusted source to people of all ages and backgrounds within that community. So I want to put on record my thanks to her and to say that we all very much miss her and what she contributes. Uh presiding officer The strategy also um feels that the strongest defense against uh misinformation is a an informed and confident public. There has been lots of challenges that in that over the years and people reflected a bit on the covid pandemic and I think perhaps we forget with retrospect just how scary that was. It was a really scary time, a virus spreading that we knew very little about. And the public health responses to that are very much in that context. It's easy to look back back now to criticize decisions that were made or things that were done or not done. Everybody did the very best that they could in the circumstances that were handed to them. It was scary. And indeed, my own family, my uncle Eric was one of the very early people I believe we believe because we there was no test we couldn't tell affected by this. uh he worked as an engineer in air conditioning so had access to everybody's viruses I should think flowing through the systems and that has affected his ongoing health. We're glad still to have him with us but it was a very scary time and people did not know exactly how to tackle that virus. I pay tribute to everybody that worked on those vaccines to bring them to us h with the speed and the elacrity that the situation uh required. Presiding officer I I am winding up the debate. can see you staring at me very sternly. I had a lot to to get in. I and I apologize if I haven't reflected everybody's comments in my summing up, but I I thank everybody for what they have contributed. I think it was an incredibly useful debate, but I want the chamber to be assured that implementation of this plan is already underway. I encourage everybody to engage upon it. And I think also we need to recognize our own roles in here. It's important the role that we all play as individuals, as elected members. We have a responsibility to share good reliable health information through NHS inform through the channels that we have and I encourage everybody to do so. Thank you. >> Thank you, Minister. That concludes the debate on addressing the harms of health misinformation. The next item of business is a statement by Steven Flynn on Ferguson Marine planned investment.