Here’s some worrying anti-vaccine misinformation I found on - where else? - a neighbourhood Facebook page.

I want to talk about it because it’s quite clever nonsense.

It’s originally from a homeopath, and I doubt their claims to have seen “more and more” children suffering adverse effects from flu vaccines, just as I’m not sure there’s a “huge push” for flu vaccinations this winter, but that’s not what I want to talk about.

The first bit is the sleight I’d hand that allows the claim that the BMJ “agrees” that flu vaccines increase the risk of catching coronavirus. Look, she even includes a link to the BMJ! It must be legit, right?

I mean, obviously not. The thing she’s actually linked to isn’t a BMJ article, it’s a “rapid response” to a BMJ article posted by a retired American paediatrician citing a single study (always questionable without repetition), but basically saying more work needs to be done.

Essentially, it’s a website comment. You don’t even need to be scientifically qualified to leave them (one comment on the same article is from someone who describes themselves as a “homemaker”). This is the equivalent of taking medical advice from the Daily Mail online comments.

Next is the “do your own research” line, which is a clever way of getting people to agree with you by appearing to empower them - “I’m not telling you what to do, not like those evil elitist doctors. Make your own mind up.”

Except, of course, the poster is telling you what to do, and if you were to do your own research...could you? Do you know where to look, how to interpret what you’re looking at, how much weight to give a single article, how reliable a study is? Not sure I do.

Anyway, now we get to the crux of the post, the bit where she slips from "flu jabs might make your kids more vulnerable to covid" to "the covid vaccine is dangerous, don't get it". This is the properly dangerous bit of the nonsense.

Seemingly out of nowhere, she slips in "this new Covid-19 vaccine currently being trialled is bad news for the health of humanity".

If you really look at it, it's jarring. She goes from some questionable stuff about flu vaccines to a big, bold claim about a vaccine that hasn't even finished being trialled yet. It's a logical non sequitur and can't actually be based on any evidence, but there it is.

Then it's back to flu vaccines and some, again questionable, claims about side effects. It's blink-and-you'll-miss-it stuff, but it leaves you with a vague sense that the covid vaccine is dangerous (even though it hasn't actually been properly tested yet).

I say this is clever, because it all looks legit, and if you don't ask too many questions about it you might be convinced.

And here's the thing - most people won't ask too many questions about it. Look at how many words I've used to explain why it's nonsense (and the small amount of extra reading I needed to do to back it up). People won't do that, they'll file it away in their brains and move on.

Except when it comes time to decide whether to get a coronavirus vaccine, and they'll remember the vague sense that it's dangerous. They probably won't remember where it comes from, but it's there, and they may opt out - with all the obvious dangers that entails.

And this is why I say neighbourhood Facebook groups are the worst part of the internet. Ordinary people exposed to unfiltered, unchecked nonsense that ends up warping their understanding of the world - and possibly increasing their risk of getting a fatal respiratory disease.

What do we do about it? No idea - explaining why stuff like this is wrong rarely seems to actually make a difference. Maybe Facebook could do something though?

P.S. The "Bombshell as flu shots..." screenshot is also interesting, because virtually the same headline has been used on anti-vax stories for years, just not mentioning coronavirus (it's usually about weakening immune response generally).

But, of course, it took more Googling to find that out. Easier to look at a screenshot on a Facebook page.