Misinformation and its impact in the Arab American community

By:Fatmeh Atieh Bakhit

Al Enteshar Al Arabi Newspaper – – Los Angeles – From severe illnesses such as cancer to light injuries like a twisted ankle, Arabs, particularly Arab Americans, have always trusted their doctors as medical experts for health advice and treatments.

But when it comes to COVID vaccines, for many Arab Americans, this trust and their normal decision process for healthcare suddenly have suddenly become chaotic during the pandemic. And COVID misinformation from social media has a lot to do with it.

This situation gets further complicated even among the fully vaccinated parents as many are unsure about whether their children should get vaccinated in order to return to classes for the 2022 school year. This hesitancy is consistent with the latest data released by the California Department of Public Health that only 36.4% of the population of 5-11 are vaccinated.

Misinformation in Arab American Community

Similar to the mainstream, virtually all Arabic language information that flows through social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp are plagued with misinformation about COVID and vaccines.

“Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and the subsequent development and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines are rampant across Arabic-language Facebook pages and groups,” reported researchers Ciarán O’Connor and Moustafa Ayad, who published their findings on the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue website.

As a result, a large percentage of Arab Americans have become reluctant to receive vaccinations for themselves and their family members in the early period of the pandemic.

“My patients came to me with a lot of misinformation they have picked up from social media like the vaccines could give you COVID 19 virus, alter your DNA and fertility thus affecting your future generations,” said Dr. Saleh Najib, a Los Angeles-based physician with many Arab American patients.

“Clearly these fears have caused them much anxieties.”

Even when Dr. Najib explained that both the FDA (Federal Drugs Administration) and the CDC (Center for Disease Control & Prevention) have approved these vaccines and there is much evidence showing that vaccination saves lives with no such harmful effects, many weren’t convinced.

This is because misinformation is cleverly crafted to resonate with target demographics, including the educated group.

Ahmed Mahmoud, a Junior at the University of Irvine, said misinformation reached him through WhatsApp.

“The logic is filled with scientific terminologies that sound real, like the vaccines cause many emergency situations for those with heart disease and immunodeficiency problems,” said Mahmoud. “The vaccine can affect the heart muscle and lead to clots.”

Dr. Najib countered this misinformation, “COVID vaccines do not have these crazy effects and certainly no long-term impacts because the components in vaccines degrade within a few days. The way the vaccine responds and builds immunity varies from person to person, just as people respond to medications. Therefore, side effects differ from person to person but definitely not harmful”.

Low Trust in Government

In many Middle Eastern countries, the trust in government is low. As a result, people often resort to word of mouth from their personal trusted sources like family members and friends in their immediate social circles before making any major decisions like health, jobs, and voting.

As many Arab Americans, particularly those from the immigrant generation, maintain this cultural characteristic in America, they are now looking for advice and examples on the vaccines from their personal trusted sources in America. However, this situation can get complicated as many of whom are, ironically, also exposed to the same misinformation from social media.

A Shift in Attitude

According to the 2020 Census, there’s more than 700,000 Arab Americans living in California. Unfortunately, since both the state and county health agencies do not track this population, there’s no vaccination data for this group.

At the national level, data collected by the Survey of Arab Health in America between May 2020 and September 2020 in the early period of the pandemic shows that only 56.7% of Arab American adults have an inclination to be vaccinated.

Dr. Saleh Najib, a Los Angeles-based physician with many Arab American patients, notes that there has been a shift in attitudes toward vaccines. Anecdotally, he believes probably more than 70% of adult Middle Easterners in LA County have been fully vaccinated.

This is consistent with a 2022 national study “COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy among Arab Americans”, led by Mira H. Kheil and Deepti Jain of Wayne State University and published in MDPI, publisher of open access scientific journals. The findings show about 73% of responded Arab Americans say they are inclined to receive a booster while 72% say they have to have their children vaccinated.

Islamic Perspective on Vaccination

Contrary to many stereotypes that Islamic teaching tends to be conservative and therefore Muslims are leery of modern development and science.

Al Enteshar interviewed Dr. Ahmed Karima, the noted Professor of Comparative Jurisprudence and Islamic Law at Al-Azahar University in Cairo, Egypt.

According to Dr. Karima, Islamic law actually requires its followers to take preventive and precautionary measures to preserve public health.

“Those who fail to take vaccinations and immunizations endanger themselves and the community, ” said Dr. Karima. “Do not kill yourselves, for God has been merciful to you.”

Dr. Karima is also critical of misinformation designed to discourage people from taking vaccines. He emphasizes, “Harmful rumors should not be circulated, because they lead to harm and intimidation.”

People Should Be Vaccinated

Dr. Sayed Jumaa, head of the Islamic Center in Reseda, California, concurs with Dr. Karima. Dr. Citing history, Dr. Jumaa notes that Islam urges all Muslims to receive vaccinations in the event of emerging diseases, as was the case in the past when malaria, typhoid, and other plagues spread widely and had destroyed many lives. Vaccination, which was halal and not forbidden, was the prevention to stop these catastrophes.

“Every person must take the vaccine. For every disease, God created a medicine. I ask the  Community not to listen to the false information on the social media because they have nothing to do with real medicine or research and science,” said Dr. Jumaa.