Tara Vijayan, MD: Doctors Fighting Misinformation

Doctors have been fighting misinformation regarding COVID-19 for more than 2 years now.

Whether it is about the safety of vaccines, the efficacy of treatments, or the overall threat of the actual disease, combating some of these misconceptions and purposeful misinformation attempts can be a full time job on it’s own.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Tara Vijayan, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and medical director of antimicrobial stewardship at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, spoke about the role of primary care physicians in fighting those misconceptions.

“It’s hard to counter misinformation with a lot of information because I think it can be overwhelming,” she said. “But I think it’s really bringing it back to the patient and trying to get patients to really think about their own social network in a meaningful way can really build that trust.”

Vijayan said there are also misconceptions over clinical trials.

“I think maybe there are some ideas about what is actually being measured,” Vijayan said. “I’ve seen a little bit of chatter of this idea that they are keeping this information from us. I certainly think vaccine misinformation is often misrepresented.”