It was May 2020 and the entire world seemed to dream about the arrival of the coronavirus vaccine. It was not even certain that it would be developed. But it occurred to me to propose a report in the newspaper with an approach that sounded ridiculous to many. The management asked me to review the data carefully, because they found it implausible. In the end they trusted me and it was published with the headline: “What if the vaccine arrives, but millions of people refuse to get it?” Days later, we received with nervous laughter the atrocities that the singer Miguel Bosé said about vaccines and confirmed what many studies indicated: there was an underlying tide of distrust that was crystallizing against vaccines, science and authorities in general. Bosé was the tip of the iceberg: if he appears, there is a lot of ice to deal with underneath.
When these days Pablo Motos and Imanol Arias have coincided with first-rate pseudoscientific claims (remember: pseudo means false), of those that sound like a mile away, we must be alert. Because it is likely that we have another iceberg ahead of us. Motos sells us on his Instagram “one of the most cutting-edge machines in cellular regeneration”, which takes the air from the room and converts it into “cold atmospheric plasma”, according to the healthcare company that accompanies him, an “excited gas with many protons and free electrons that will be transferred to our body” to give it “that boost of energy”, “directly stimulate the vagus nerve” and “neutralize free radicals”. Arias, in a extensive interview in Infobae, explains that he dedicates himself to quantum meditation devised by a charlatan to “turn on the pineal” and, above all, “not be an enemy of cortisol.” If there is something that defines a hoax, it is that parascientific verbiage with which the deception is intended to be masked.
But you don't have to laugh (or not only). Celebrities have long been a public health problem. The culture of celebritiesnow turbotiktokized with the culture of influencers, is an endless transmission belt of claims that are false, misleading or directly harmful to health. The media plays a crucial role in all this, always interested in spreading “the latest trick” of this or that celebrity to look great: before it was the Dukan diet, the smoothies or detox shakes, now routines of skincare and intermittent fasting. Following the beauty advice of a top model, who has won the genetic lottery, is like asking a basketball player for tips on how to measure 2 meters. Except in the case of Sofía Mazagatos, who was right when she recommended putting your head in the freezer “without closing the door.”
However, we love to follow those tips. Celebrities, like us, are also stumbling after miracle remedies, but with a notable difference: they have money and time (that is, more money) to fully immerse themselves in each of those routines or practices: “I have been searching for months. a machine and I have finally found it,” confesses Motos, who has gone to Alicante to get it. Anyone who follows popular characters on social networks will have seen promotional videos of this same coat, their favorite clinics or pseudoclinics, bodywork and paint to continue succeeding.
Much of this unfortunate cycle is explained by the halo effect, a mental shortcut that causes us to extend a positive trait, success or beauty, to the rest of that person's decisions. That is why we buy the custard that a footballer sells and that is why they should be prevented from using this trick on minors at the expense of their nutritional health. Being pretty doesn't make you an expert in dermatology, scoring a lot of goals doesn't make you a nutritionist, and having a top-rated show doesn't give you a medical degree.
You have to raise your eyebrow when celebrities give a pseudoscientific pirouette of the caliber of those of Motos and Arias, because perhaps they give us clues about the amount of trash that is spreading under the media's radar. The actor already says it in his interview: “I don't read newspapers, I find out differently, I have great respect for the networks.” The case of Elon Musk in the United States is also paradigmatic, spreading conspiracies of all kinds with his gigantic loudspeaker, which at least helps to make them visible. The same ones that also attract Iker Jiménez, coincidentally, who abandoned flying saucer conspiracies for geopolitical ones with a remarkable nose for reading the current times. There is another cognitive bias behind all this: narcissism, so common among celebrities, is one of the usual features among fans of alternative theories of reality.
The Minister of Health, Mónica García, has disfigured Motos' message in a tweet: “Pseudotherapies only have effects on the pocketbook, at best. The lack of scientific evidence is not only a deception: it can also put health at risk.” But it is in her power to do something more: in 2018, her predecessor, María Luisa Carcedo, launched a government plan together with Pedro Duque to end the quackery of pseudotherapies. “Public or private establishments that include pseudotherapies cannot be called health centers,” Carcedo said then. Maybe it's time to dust off that plan.
In September 2020, I asked the sociologist Josep Lobera about Miguel Bosé, who had done a lot of work to understand the misgivings towards medicine and science. “He is a canary in the mine,” he replied, “a warning indicator that there are underground things that we do not see because we are not in those groups, but they are occurring. “Millions of people in Spain have a very distrustful, very alternative discourse.” Since then, many things have happened and one of them is the crystallization of anti-science discourses in certain sectors. Motos and Arias are chirping: let's be attentive.
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