Beyond Misinformation?
The launch event of our project, “Beyond Misinformation? Encountering, recognising and approaching contested health-claims”, took place on the 30th September 2025 at the Wellcome Trust in London.
‘Misinformation’, we are often told, is everywhere. In recent years, there has been significant policy attention to regulation of unproven, disproven or misleading health-claims, and their potentially harmful effects. Concerns span areas as diverse as mental health, reproductive health, weight loss and life-threatening diseases. Controversial claims can originate from a range of groups and individuals, including social media influencers, the wellness industry, religious lobbies or political figures.
But not all unproven, disproven or misleading claims are deemed equally problematic – not all become framed as ‘misinformation’. Governments and others make a range of decisions about which types of claims are tolerable, and which are deemed so harmful or problematic that they require intervention. How and why those decisions are made is often unclear, and policy discourses on misinformation do not always acknowledge the difficulties and complexity of drawing lines of tolerance.
In this event, we opened-up the concept of misinformation to acknowledge its blurry boundaries, and reflect on the type of social, political and legal work it can and – vitally - cannot do. Recognising the importance but also the limitations of the concept, we explored what is at stake in defining and conceptualising contested health-related claims as misinformation or otherwise.
Exploring diverse contexts, including chronic illnesses, reproductive health, longevity discourses, so-called ‘conversion therapies’, and traditional healing, we discussed questions such as:
Why are some unproven, disproven and misleading health-related claims problematised in policy discourses while others are ignored?
How do such policy framings sit against health professionals and publics’ understandings of contested claims, and of when these are important or problematic?
What kind of contrasting socio-political projects can contested health-claims involve?
How did ‘misinformation’ come to play such an important role within health policy, what other notions did it silence in the process, and what are its limits?
What alternative framings, concepts or approaches beyond misinformation could be mobilised to engage contested health-related claims?
PROGRAMME
12.00-13.00 Lunch
13.00-13.15 Introduction (Prof. Emilie Cloatre, King’s College London)
13.15-14.45 Session 1 Chair: Prof. Patricia Kingori, University of Oxford
Prof. Ayo Wahlberg, University of Copenhagen: “Knowing better: where does health contestation take place?”
Dr. Pia Vuolanto, Tampere Universities: “Misinformation and complementary and alternative medicine”
Dr Ilke Turkmendag, University of Newcastle: “Regulating hope: Promissory discourse and longevity markets”
Prof. Sharifah Sekalala, University of Warwick: “Herbal medicines, social media and the licensing of drugs during pandemics”
14.45-15.15 Coffee break
15.15-16.30 Session 2 Chair: Prof. Mairead Enright, University of Loughborough
Dr Flora Renz, King’s College London: “If you are worried about Covid are you misinformed? Thinking through Covid-safety practices for an endemic virus”
Prof. Hel Spandler, University of Central Lancashire: “Unwholesome alliances?: Understanding the weaponisation of critiques of psychiatry”
Prof. Ruth Fletcher, Queen Mary University London: “Reproducing Information Otherwise”
16.30-17.00: Discussion and closing remarks (Prof. Martyn Pickersgill/Prof. Emilie Cloatre)
17.00-18.30: Drinks reception (Private Dining Room, Wellcome Trust)
