Thread by @kakape

So I managed to keep myself from live-tweeting my own session at #WHS2022 this morning, but wanted to collect a few points/quotes from it here.
The session was on "Global Health Communications". Full recording is online:

His father, a policemam in Ireland, taught him one thing, says @DrMikeRyan: ‘Always answer the question you’re asked’
“I’ve kept that in my mind the whole way through this.” (I have to say that really shows!)

Hardest part were personal attacks (for instance on FoxNews), says @DrMikeRyan:
“When you're being attacked yourself, you have some sense that you have agency in that. It's when you see others around you being attacked, that you really feel resentment, your blood really boils.”

@DrMikeRyan "We've created lots of shouting platforms, we haven't actually created communication platforms", says @DrMikeRyan. "It's not a very safe place for the ordinary person to engage. We have not created engagement platforms. It's unsafe. And people feel unsafe. I feel unsafe."

@DrMikeRyan "I felt more at risk in the communications job at @WHO than I ever felt in Afghanistan or Sierra Leone or in Kosovo", says @DrMikeRyan. "Then how does a teenager feel safe? How does an ordinary health worker feel safe?"

“It's interesting to me in our negotiations back and forth with media companies over the last couple of years, how much companies have been prepared to change the content of a story, but very rarely will change the headline”, says @DrMikeRyan. “Because that's the click.”

“Everything is about that soundbite”, says @DrMikeRyan. “We've ended up in a world of sound bites now, not a conversation, not a dialogue. I don't know how we fix that.”

@DrMikeRyan "In the pandemic, misinformation is not a victimless crime", says @RoopaDhatt.
"I have seen that firsthand, practicing in the United States, a high income country where vaccines were available, but patients were refusing because of misinformation."

@DrMikeRyan @RoopaDhatt "In a world where numerous countries do not prioritize sex education, and I would include my own United Kingdom in that, there is a vacuum of information", says @sophiasgaler who labels it the "sex misinformation crisis".

@DrMikeRyan @RoopaDhatt @sophiasgaler Even trying to counter this type of misinformation is challenging, says @RoopaDhatt, because experts putting correct information out using terms like "penis" or "vagina" often see their content removed " for politicised reasons, not scientific aspects".