Changing the Channel on Public Health Ignorance

As a country, we’re getting dumber when it comes to public health. The current measles outbreak in the U.S. and the prospect of nine other preventable communicable diseases, including polio, coming back, as reported in this story in the Washington Post, serve as scary proof of that.

My mom had polio when she was a child. Although she was fortunate enough to avoid an iron lung, her post-polio syndrome negatively affected her health a few decades later and for years.

The list of reasons why we’re getting dumber about public health is long. At the top is the anti-vaccine movement spurred on by faux federal public health agencies headed by RFK Jr. under the anti-science Trump regime. Second would be conservative media outlets that parrot and promote whatever public health ignorance drools out of the mouths of RFK Jr. and the quacks working at agencies like HHS, the FDA, the CDC and NIH.

Last November in this blog post, A Clear Idea to Improve Public Health, I said we should stop making Fox News the default. This propaganda channel, which trumpets whatever idiotic public health nonsense RFK Jr. spits out, is the default station that runs on TV continuously in retail waiting rooms across the country. It’s public health ignorance by osmosis. You’re sitting there waiting for your car to be washed, and suddenly you’re searching online for raw milk.

What I didn’t know was why Fox News is on continuously in retail waiting rooms. I simply assumed it was the conservative choice of whoever owns the waiting rooms or controls the remotes. However, a more likely reason is money.

We have Xfinity from Comcast as our cable TV and internet provider. We have our monthly bill of around $300 automatically deducted from our checking account. No paper statements with itemized charges. As a result, we have no idea exactly what we’re paying for.

So, I decided to find out. I went to our online Xfinity account and printed out our most recent monthly statement. The statement split our monthly charges about two-thirds TV-related and about one-third WiFi-related. But the statement didn’t say exactly which cable package of channels we get.

I took the statement to our local Xfinity store this past Monday to find out. The answer is, we have the Plus package of channels for $105 a month. Plus is the middle plan of channels, or silver plan, if we were talking about ACA health plans. The plan above us is the Premium package at $135 a month. The plan below us is the Core package at $65 a month.

Guess what cable news station comes automatically with the cheaper Plus plan? Yup, Fox News. You get Fox by default when you purchase Xfinity from Comcast. You don’t get Bloomberg TV. You don’t get CNBC. You don’t get CNN. You don’t get MS Now (formerly MSNBC). You don’t get BBC America. You don’t even get The Weather Channel, which would tell you, yes, climate change is real.

If you want cable news stations that tell you the truth about public health and give you the facts about immunizations and vaccines, you have to purchase the Plus or Premium cable plans for $40 or $70 more a month, respectively. Xfinity dumbs down public health and vaccine education with Newsmax and NewsNation — both come with Plus and Premium, but not Core.

All those seniors you know who won’t get vaccines for the flu, COVID-19, shingles, pneumonia or RSV? They’re eating a steady diet of public health disinformation because they’re on fixed incomes and don’t want to spend money on any cable TV plan that would give them information to make them smarter.

Fox is on TV monitors everywhere, including retail waiting rooms, because it’s cheaper. That makes the spread of public health disinformation cheaper. The lies are cheaper. The business model is brilliant in a fascist propaganda sort of way.

It’s not so brilliant if you want to educate the public about public health and benefits of science-tested, evidenced-based and safety proven immunizations and vaccines. You have to pay more for that. I’ll stick with my Plus cable package for an extra $40 per month. That’s less painful than shingles.

To build a better healthcare system, we need better public health education and information.